California Wildfires: NASA Images Reveal ‘Charred’ Landscape

As wildfires scorch huge swaths of Los Angeles, aircraft have captured the scale of the destruction from far above.

The extent of the Eaton fire, which has now ravaged 14,117 acres of the city since it started burning on January 7, can be seen in new NASA images of Altadena.

The picture was snapped on January 11 using NASA’s AVIRIS-3 (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-3) on board a B200 aircraft flying over Los Angeles County.

The image is in false color to highlight the areas “charred” by the blaze: burned trees and buildings appear dark brown, and scorched wildlands are colored orange.

At least 25 people have been killed by the wildfires around the city, which have burned over 12,000 structures and forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate their homes.

The largest and most destructive of the blazes, the Palisades fire, has burned 23,713 acres so far, including nearly the entirety of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Nine people are known to have died in the Palisades fire, and 16 have been killed by the Eaton fire in Altadena.

The Palisades fire is still only 21 percent contained, while the Eaton fire is 45 percent contained. There are three other fires also burning around LA: the 799-acre Hurst fire in San Fernando, the 61-acre Auto fire in Oxnard, and the 34-acre Little Mountain fire in San Bernadino.

The Hurst fire is 98 percent contained, the Auto fire is 85 percent contained, but the Little Mountain fire, which only started on January 15, is currently 0 percent contained.

When the above image was taken on January 11, the Eaton fire was also at 14,117 acres in size, and was 15 percent contained.

These fires were strongly exacerbated by the powerful Santa Ana winds, with gusts of up to 100mph fanning the flames and helping them to rapidly spread and burn the dry vegetation around the city.

These winds are expected to drop in the coming days, but may strengthen again next week.

“Gentle offshore winds will continue to weaken tonight. Calmer but dry conditions will build Thursday with some moisture arriving this weekend. Critical fire weather conditions will likely return early next week,” Cal Fire wrote in a status update for the Eaton fire.

Images taken using NASA’s AVIRIS-3 are very useful for researching the behavior of wildfires, and to study the emissions from the fire and erosions of the soil.

“In addition to assisting with damage assessments, these data may help us understand the chemical composition and toxic nature of ash in the post-fire environment and how it redistributes over time via wind and water flows, with subsequent data acquisitions,” said Michael Falkowski, manager of NASA’s wildland fire program.

For now, the wildfires continue to blaze, and there are fears that they could take weeks to fully extinguish, Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuña told host Kate Bolduan during an interview on CNN News Central.

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