The Ferguson Fire which ominously began on Friday, July 13, 2018, is now a week old and has grown to 22,812 acres in size with only 7% containment. Firefighters are having a difficult time with the fire burning in extremely rough terrain. Weather conditions continue to be a factor as weather instability in the region will most likely produce thunderstorms in the next few days. The winds from these thunderstorms in the Sierra Crest area can extend all the way to the valley despite being miles away, bringing smoke to that area, but also potentially pushing the fire in that direction as well. Also possible with thunderstorms are swiftly changing winds which can impact firefighters and make fighting the blaze even more dangerous when winds change direction. Winds also prevent air support for the fire. Over 2,700 personnel are currently working this fire currently.
NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the fire and smoke blowing from it on July 19, 2018 with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument. Actively burning areas (hot spots), detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Each hot spot is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire. NASA image courtesy of the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb.