Earth ID: 4993

Spread of the Dixie Fire - 2021

Visualizations by Cindy Starr Released on June 1, 2022

This visualization shows the spread of the Dixie fire between July 14 and October 22, 2021, updated every 12 hours based on new satellite active fire detections. The yellow outlines track the position of the active fire lines for the last 60 hours, with the latest location of the fire front in the brightest shade of yellow. The red points show the location of active fire detections, while the grey region shows the estimated total area burned. The graph shows the cumulative burned area in square kilometers.

This visualization highlights data from a new fire detection and tracking approach (Chen et al., 2022) based on near-real time active fire detections from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi-NPP satellite. Every 12 hours, the fire tracking algorithm uses new active fire detections to update the total fire perimeter and estimate the position of active fire lines where the fire may continue to spread. Yellow lines indicate the new fire fronts from active fire data (red points) every 12 hours. This approach provides a detailed perspective on the behavior of the Dixie fire, the largest fire in California history. The fire tracking data identify periods of rapid fire expansion, spot fires from blowing embers outside of the large fire perimeter, and active fire detections within the perimeter from continued flaming and smoldering behind the active fire fronts. In total, the Dixie fire burned for more than 100 days, including more than a month of fire activity after the perimeter was contained in mid-September.

For more details, see the paper here.

This image shows the extent of the Dixie fire on July 21, 2021. The yellow outlines track the position of the active fire lines for the last 60 hours, with the latest location of the fire front in the brightest shade of yellow. The red points show the location of active fire detections, while the grey region shows the estimated total area burned. The graph shows the cumulative burned area in square kilometers.

This image shows the extent of the Dixie fire on July 31, 2021. The yellow outlines track the position of the active fire lines for the last 60 hours, with the latest location of the fire front in the brightest shade of yellow. The red points show the location of active fire detections, while the grey region shows the estimated total area burned. The graph shows the cumulative burned area in square kilometers.

This image shows the extent of the Dixie fire on August 31, 2021. The yellow outlines track the position of the active fire lines for the last 60 hours, with the latest location of the fire front in the brightest shade of yellow. The red points show the location of active fire detections, while the grey region shows the estimated total area burned. The graph shows the cumulative burned area in square kilometers.

This image shows the spread of the Dixie fire between July 14 and October 22, 2021, with the fire line for each 12-hour step in time shown in a different color.

Perimeter of the Dixie wildfire as of October 22, 2021. The dropdown menu offers multiple resolutions for a 16:9 aspect ratio.

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Visualization Credits

Lead Scientist:
Doug C. Morton (NASA/GSFC)

Lead Visualizer:
Cindy Starr (GST)

Visualizers:
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
Michala Garrison (SSAI)
Andrew J Christensen (SSAI)
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
Kel Elkins (USRA)
Alex Kekesi (GST)

Technical Support:
Laurence Schuler (ADNET)
Ian Jones (ADNET)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Science Paper:
Chen, Y., Hantson, S., Andela, N. et al. California wildfire spread derived using VIIRS satellite observations and an object-based tracking system. Sci Data 9, 249 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01343-0

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4993

Data Used:

SRTM/SIR-C/DEM

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Landsat-8/OLI/TIRS/Band Combination 4-3-2

Observed Data - USGS - 7/11/2021 - 7/11/2021

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Suomi-NPP/VIIRS/Fire Events Data Suite (FEDS) GeoPackage also referred to as: Fire Events Data Suite (FEDS) GeoPackage

NASA - 07/14/2021 - 10/22/2021

The authors used the Suomi-NPP VIIRS I-band fire location data product (VNP14IMGML, Collection 1 Version 4), the U.S. National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2016) and gridMET product27 dead fuel moisture to develop an automatic system to dynamically track the growth of all fire events at a regional scale.

https://figshare.com/s/0a68d4f2fbf5dc82930e

Credit:
Yang Chen, Stijn Hantson, Niels Andela, Shane R. Coffield, Casey A. Graff, Douglas C. Morton, Lesley E. Ott, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Padhraic Smyth,

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
SVS >> Fire Management
DLESE >> Human geography
DLESE >> Natural hazards
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Human Dimensions >> Natural Hazards >> Fires
SVS >> Hyperwall
SVS >> Biosphere >> Ecological Dynamics >> Fire Occurrence
NASA Science >> Earth
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Human Dimensions >> Environmental Governance/management >> Fire Management

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0