File:West Coast Fires (MODIS).jpg

English: Large wildfires continued to scorch the forests of the U.S. West Coast in late September 2023. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of plumes of smoke rising from several active fires in northern California and southwestern Oregon on September 21.

Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the instrument detected high temperatures associated with actively burning fire. The plumes of gray smoke emitted from each of the fires was so thick that it obscured the land beneath from view.

The two northern-most fires are the Anvil and Flat Fires and are located in Oregon. The Anvil Fire was discovered on August 25, and as of September 22 had burned 19,855 acres in the Grassy Knob Wilderness near Port Orford, Oregon. It was reported as 9 percent contained. The Flat Fire began on July 15 close to Agness, Oregon. It has spread over 34,242 acres and InciWeb reports it has been 75 percent contained.

According to CALFIRE, the active fires in northern California seen in this image include (from north to south), the Smith River Complex (currently 94,168 acres), the Happy Camp Complex (21,368 acres), the SRF Lightning Complex (33,904 acres), the Deep Fire (4,198 acres), and the South Fork Complex (3,929 acres).