Sun and Smoke

Smoke drifts into the air from a prescribed burn at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield, during the April 2025 FireSense research campaign. These prescribed burns are ecologically necessary for the plants and animals in the longleaf pine ecosystem, and reduce fuels that could be accidentally ignited due to lighting strikes or military training operations. NASA FireSense, the Department of Defense, and their partners use prescribed burns such as this one to test tools and technologies to make wildland fire management safer and more effective, including the modeling of smoke plumes and air quality.