Contrails and Smoke Over Central Canada

Smoke appears from a wildfire in Alberta’s Lac La Biche county, near the Christina river. Other fires burn in Southern Canada near the border between Saskatchewan and Ontario. Linear clouds created from airplane exhaust, known as contrail clouds, cross the skies, the heaviest clouds are in Ontario.

NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite captured the plume on September 08, 2011 at 19:20 UTC (3:20 p.m. EDT). Fires in this image are depicted as red dots, representing high surface area temperatures.

Heightened fire activity in Canada’s southern provinces is expected. Fire dangers in Alberta and Saskatchewan (both featured in this image) have increased with extreme conditions in the south, according to Canada’s National Wildland Fire Situation Report.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA Goddard. Caption by Melissa Quijada.