This fire began on May 20, 2015 according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. As of May 21, there were 22 wildfires in the Saskatchewan province, five that have not been contained and one that is currently being assessed. The wildfire in this image is more than 9,376 hectares (23,168 acres) in size. The region has already suffered with 185 wildfires to date and the normal fire season has not even begun. At this time last year, there had been 106 wildfires in Saskatchewan.
The reason for the huge number of fires in the area? Across the province humidity is less than 20 percent, temperatures are 15 to 25 degrees (59 to 77 F) and winds are gusting up to 30 kilometers (18 mph) an hour. Those naturally occurring phenomenon combined with the tinder box conditions of the flora make for extreme fire hazards. That’s how the region is currently forecasting their fire outlook–either high or extreme. Wildfire management is at prep level 5–their highest alert level for wildfires. The extreme fire hazard looks to continue for at least the next four or five days. All but two of the wildfires in the region were human caused.
NASA’s Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on May 21, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner