Fire hotspots along the US West Coast

While wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures and low rainfall, have sustained several major fires for much of August. The map shows wildfire hotspots along the US West Coast in 2021. Further north, a number of Canadian Provinces (including British Columbia) have also been experiencing intense fires since the end of June.

The data has been extracted from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) which uses data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and NASA's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites.

Read full story: California continues to burn