PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA18795: 2013 Yosemite Fire Assessed by NASA Satellite Data
In this image from NASA's Aqua satellite, the red areas seen by the MODIS instrument revealed that live fuel moisture had excessively dried up by more than 50 percent prior to the Rim Fire in August 2013.
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Aqua 
 Spacecraft:  Aqua
 Instrument:  MODIS 
 Product Size:  6843 x 3890 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA18795.tif (79.89 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA18795.jpg (2.397 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Measurements from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite were used assess fire danger in California's Stanislaus National Forest (Yosemite National Park) by monitoring live fuel moisture, which is the amount of water contained in vegetation. In this satellite image, the red areas seen by MODIS revealed that live fuel moisture had excessively dried up by more than 50 percent prior to the Rim Fire in August 2013. The Rim Fire burned more than 257,000 acres and caused $124 million in damage. Yellow/orange dots marked actual fire locations (data from U.S. Forest Service), which occurred primarily over the red areas, indicating highly elevated fire danger potential identified by MODIS before the fire occurred.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC

Image Addition Date:
2014-09-02