Yellowstone Burn Recovery
A combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space.
In the time-lapse video below, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone's forests following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.
Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek has been studying the recovery of the forest after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. In the video below, he talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distinguish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth.
In this time-lapse video, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone's forests following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.
For complete transcript, click here.
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek has been studying the recovery of the forest after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. In this video, he talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distinguish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth.
For complete transcript, click here.
Complete transcript available.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterImages used from NASA's Earth Observatory:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/yellowstone.phpLandsat is a joint program of NASA and USGS:
http://landsat.usgs.gov
http://www.nasa.gov/landsat
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Video editor
- Matthew Radcliff (KBRwyle)
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Scientist
- Jeffrey Masek (NASA/GSFC)
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Interviewee
- Jeffrey Masek (NASA/GSFC)
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Producer
- Matthew Radcliff (KBRwyle)
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Videographer
- Matthew Radcliff (KBRwyle)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:-
Yellowstone Burn Recovery
(ID: 2011117)
Monday, July 23, 2012 at 4:00AM
Produced by - Walt Feimer
Related pages
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ID: 13129 Produced Video
Yellowstone Fire: Then and Now
Read moreSatellite images reveal a drastic change over the 30 years since the 1988 Yellowstone fires. || In the summer of 1988, a third of Yellowstone National Park’s verdant landscape was wiped out in a devastating wildfire. Images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites have been able to follow the remarkable recovery of the land since then. Landsat instruments use visible and infrared light to differentiate between burned and healthy areas. Images taken right after the fire use false color to show freshly burned land as dark red. The dark red areas are patchy, indicating that the fire did not totally burn everything in its path. The shades of red span from dark red to light red to mark the varying severity of certain areas. In 2018, the burn scars were a pale, pinkish tan indicating that the forest vegetation is recovering. The light green edges are young trees, which use and reflect sunlight differently than mature trees that appear dark green. Fire scientists and researchers have used these false colored images to understand the long-term effects of wildfire upon a landscape and the progression of recovery over the 1988-2018 period. Watch the videos to learn more. ||
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ID: 10864 Produced Video
Yellowstone's Burn Scars
Read moreA combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space. In the time-lapse video below, a collection of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2011 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape. ||
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