Powerful wildfires devastating Canada captured in satellite imagery

By Meredith Garfalo
Space.com
July 25, 2024
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, United States

Quick-moving wildfires continue to burn across Western Canada, keeping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s GOES-R series satellites busy as they monitor hotspots and smoke plumes around the clock. On Wednesday evening in Jasper National Park, the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, thousands of residents and tourists had to be evacuated as powerful fires scorched through the southern part of the community. According to the Associated Press, there were “significant losses” across the area as structures were burned to the ground. …Firefighters, weather forecasters and community leaders rely on satellites to provide a wider scope of fire and smoke movement; they use images taken by the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument aboard each of the GOES-R satellites to aid with such monitoring needs. …This benefits firefighting efforts because it helps teams better understand each particular fire and also can help communities have more lead time to evacuate.

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