These images depict approximate fireline locations in color-coded pixels of apparent ground surface temperatures in Celsius. Use the map backgrounds as a general location guide, and look for recognizable terrain features or landmarks on the imagery itself for relative positioning of hotspots. Bodies of water, street grids, open fields, highways, ridgelines and stream courses show up well in this imagery.

Images were collected from the PSW Airborne Sciences Aircraft and disseminated in part by satellite communications in near-real time. FireMapper measures the radiance of emitted thermal-infrared light, which readily penetrates smoke. False-color images shown here depict the apparent surface temperature (in Celsius) as estimated from radiance and a simple black-body model. Warmer tones represent recent or active combustion; areas of light gray are cooling ash or warm bare ground and the low temperatures of unburned forest and cool ground are shown in darker gray (see chart above). Images have been geographically referenced. Vertical exaggeration in 3-d views is 1.5 to one unless otherwise noted.