NASA satellites are usually the first to detect a fire as it
burns in a remote location.
And the NASA scientists use those data from our satellites to
understand how that fire has started,
the way it burns through an ecosystem,
the way in which the smoke that gets generated by those fires is
transported
all across the globe.
Hi, my name is Doug Morton. I'm an earth scientist at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center.
And I use data from NASA satellites,
aircraft and ground measurements to understand how fires are
transforming our planet.
And altogether our scientists are using data from the ground,
the air and from satellites to put together the whole picture
of how fires are part of our changing planet.
When fire burns through natural vegetation, it sends up smoke.
And some of that smoke
has very small particles-- small enough to get trapped inside of
our lungs.
Changes in temperature and rainfall are part of what drives the
risk of fire
across many landscapes.
Some areas are now hot enough that there really is no fire season
anymore.
Fire's a natural part of many ecosystems, but fire is also changing
in direct response to the way in which we're managing our
planet.
Each summer we do see large wildfires across the western United
States
and the smoke from those fires can blow across not just North
America,
but as far away as Greenland, and the ice and snow covered areas
where that
smoke lands and darkens the snow and increases the way in which
those ice caps are melting.
Increases in temperature especially during the summer months for
places like the United States make conditions hotter and
drier and more prone to extreme wildfires.