Dark Red Represents Burned Sugar Cane

Fields

Fires in Northern Australia

• Fire before a flood in New Mexico, 2013• The whole basis for this is the need for speed,” said Penny Luehring, leader of the BAER

team and the watershed improvement program for the U.S. Forest Service. “In the southwest and southern California, there’s four to six weeks after fire season before it starts to rain and flood. If we’re going to put anything in place that has a chance of controlling or mitigating the effects of water, we have to do it right away.”

• After the Silver Fire, for example, the BAER team identified severely burned areas upstream of a community, campgrounds, and forest roads. Crews scattered barley seeds over 11,000 acres, dropped mulch on 800 acres, closed off some roads and storm-proofed others.

• http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=82023

Rodeo-Chediski Fire in Arizona

• http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=40820

Combining ETM+ channels 7, 4, and 2 (one visible and two infrared channels) results in a false color image where vegetation appears as bright to dark green (bottom image). Forested areas are generally dark green while herbaceous vegetation is light green. Rangeland or more open areas appear pink to light purple. Areas with extensive pavement or urban development appear light blue or white to purple. Less densely-developed residential areas appear light green and golf courses are very bright green. The areas recently burned appear black. Dark red to bright red patches, or linear features within the burned area, are the hottest and possibly actively burning areas of the fire. The fire is spreading downslope and the front of the fire is readily detectable about 2 kilometers to the west and south of Los Alamos.

• Difference Between Low, Moderate and High Severity Burns

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BAER/

Arizona, 2001 http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/

http://www.fs.fed.us/biology/watershed/burnareas/