Category: Fire

News Archive
Image credit: Joshua Stevens, NASA Earth Observatory

Drought is Driving Fires to Burn Overnight

A new study tracks the shifting dynamics of wildfires in western North America. Using Landsat-derived datasets and active fire information from geostationary satellites, researchers found that fires are burning through the night more often—and drought is partially to blame.

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Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, on the left and USGS Director David Applegate on the right.

USGS Director Talks Landsat

In an Instagram Live event titled “Guided by Science,” Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, spoke with USGS Director Dr. David Applegate. The Landsat portion of that discussion is shared here.

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Earth in space with the words: Extra Dimensional: The Fusion of Landsat & GEDI superimposed on top.

ExtraDimensional—The Fusion of Landsat & GEDI

When Landsat’s vast decades-long archive is combined with data from other instruments it can provide amazing insight into how our world is evolving with us and around us. Here are some of the ways Landsat and GEDI data are being harnessed to help us better understand the complex relationship between humanity and nature.

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Big Creek Bridge

When Fire+Flood=Beach

A new study combines decades of Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery with hydrologic and oceanographic data to look at how changes on land affect coastlines in Big Sur, California.

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Improved Forest Disturbance Monitoring via an Algorithm Ensemble

Forest resource managers, natural resource policy makers, and global change scientists need comprehensive, consistent, and up-to-date information on trends in forest cover and condition. This information is essential for understanding carbon budgets, predicting fire behavior, quantifying biodiversity, and hydrologic modeling.

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Landsat 8 Helps Map Fires during Long, Busy Alaska Fire Season

Lighting ignited the Castle Rocks fire in the deep backcountry of Denali National Park and Preserve in early July, 2013. Over the next two months, the Castle Rocks fire would fluctuate between periods of activity and inactivity depending on changing weather conditions, eventually burning more than 12,900 acres by the time it was declared out on September 4, 2013. Remote even by Alaska standards, the Castle Rocks fire plotted approximately 100 miles to the west of Denali park headquarters and 160 miles southwest of Fairbanks.

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Mapping the World with Landsat

Speeding around the Earth at 16,800 mph (27,000 kph), two Landsat satellites are quietly, expertly watching and recording changes in Earth’s lands from space. They are gathering data for people to make maps–all kinds of wonderful maps–of our cities growing, rivers flooding, lava flowing from volcanic eruptions, forests expanding or shrinking, crops greening through the growing season, and even of evidence of pollution.

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