North Schell Fire, Eastern Nevada

The North Schell Fire is burning in east central Nevada and streaming smoke into western Utah. The light brown smoke plume was spotted by NASA satellite on June 17.

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Nevada on June 17 at 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard captured a visible image of the smoke from the North Schell Fire.

The fire began as a prescribed burn by the U.S. Forest Service in the Muncy Creek area of North Schell Range on Saturday, June 9 at 12:00 a.m. MDT. It got out of control and has burnt 22,400 acres. It is burning white fir, mountain mahogany, pinion-pine, juniper, and sagebrush, according to the U.S. Forest Service. State Route 893 and Kalamazoo Road have been closed until further notice due to the increase in fire vehicle traffic.

Link to unlabeled high resolution image:
http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/single.cgi?image=Nevada.A2012169.2035.1km.jpg

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