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Cascade Creek Fire, Washington

The Cascade Creek Wildfire was generating a lot of smoke on Oct. 2 that was blowing southeast into northern Oregon. NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the smoke and provided an outline of the fire.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite has infrared capabilities that can detect heat from the various wildfires. The image was captured on Oct. 2, 2012 at 18:40 UTC (2:40 p.m. EDT). In the MODIS images, fires, or hot spots are color coded as red areas in imagery and smoke appears in light brown. Images are generated at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The Cascade Creek Fire is located in the U.S.D.A. Forest Service's Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It is about eight miles north of Trout Lake, Wash, and is burning on the south slope of Mt. Adams. As a result, the Mt. Adams Wilderness is closed. It began from a lightning strike on Saturday Sept. 8. There are a number of agencies working together to combat the fire, that include: the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Yakama Nation, Dept. of Natural Resources, Skamania and Klickitat Counties.

Image: Jeff Schmaltz, NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team; Caption: Rob Gutro, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center