USDA FOREST SERVICE

Pacific Southwest Research Station

Fire Science: Wildfire Monitoring and Prediction

Williams Fire, Angeles National Forest, CA 23 September 2002, 14:07 to 14:37 PDT

Surface temperatures as estimated from radiance measured at 11.9 micrometers wavelength in the thermal infrared by the PSW FireMapper system. A color scale is shown at lower right. Warmer tones (red, orange, yellow) represent recent and active combustion; surrounding landscape temperatures where measured are shown in tan shades. Large reaches of higher temperature behind a fire front are typically associated with heavy fuel loading.