This embedded map above shows a Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite (Day/Night Band) false-color image of the Fresno June Lightning Complex Fire burning in Eastern Fresno County, California. The image was acquired on June 27, 2024, by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the joint NASA/NOAA NOAA-20 satellite. The fire complex comprises three large fires—the Bolt, Flash, and Hog fires—as well as some smaller fires. According to CalFire, the fires have been attributed to multiple lightning strikes in the area starting June 25; as of Thursday, June 27, the fire complex has burned nearly 10,000 acres.
The left (A) side of the map is the nighttime false-color image showing all artificial and natural light-emitting sources; the right (B) side is the same nighttime image overlaid with the VIIRS fires and thermal anomalies layer, with detected hotspots shown as red dots. Swipe the center bar back and forth to distinguish areas of the image that are city lights associated with large cities and towns like Fresno from areas associated with the fires.
The Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite (Day/Night Band) is a false-color composite using the VIIRS at-sensor radiance and the brightness temperatures from the M15 band. Data are provided by NASA's VJ146A1 product using NOAA-20 observations.
Originally designed by the U.S. Naval Research Lab and incorporated into NASA research and applications efforts, the resulting false-color scheme shows nighttime city lights in shades of yellow with infrared, nighttime cloud presence in shades of blue. During bright moonlight conditions, moonlight reflected from cloud tops and the land surface may also provide a yellow hue to these features. Comparisons of cloud-free conditions before and after a period of significant change, such as new city growth, disasters, fires, or other factors, may exhibit a change in emitted light (yellows) from those features over time.
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Dataset
VJ146A1_NRT doi:10.5067/VIIRS/VJ146A1_NRT.002
