Yosemite National Park, California

On August 17th, a hunter's illegal fire went out of control and began burning through the area outside of Yosemite Valley.  As of the most recent update from InciWeb (October 18, 2013), the total area burned was at 1040 sq kilometers (402 sq miles) and the fire was 95% contained.  The total damage accumulated so far is over 127 million USD. This is over two months after the fire began. There were a few closures around Yosemite National Park but most of the Park was able to remain open.

Between drought, heat, and forest service budget cuts, this fire happened at a pretty bad time.  NASA's Earth Observatory followed the event through the Suomi research satellite and provided the images that I have produced into gif format below.

The following gif shows August 16, 2013 through September 3, 2013.  The green border near the center is the Yosemite National Park boundary:

The first week of the fire showed the greatest expansion.

Video of the fire from Yosemite NP's Youtube page:

You can find it yourself on Google Earth using these coords:     37°50' N 120°06' W  

More info from sources referenced: Wikipedia, InciWeb, Huffington Post, Earth Observatory

Check back in two weeks to explore a Russian Volcano!

Lakewood, Wisconsin

Well folks, I was caught off guard by the US Government shutdown and lost access to some of the websites I frequent for this blog.  I had planned on taking some data from NOAA for this post but unfortunately those pages are closed until the government gets back up and running.  I do have some limited information from wikipedia so I'll be using that.  Feel free to be skeptical of what you read here until I can come back and edit this post with the NOAA data.

From June 6-8 2007, a tornado outbreak occurred in the Northern Plains and Great Lakes regions.  On June 7, the largest tornado of the outbreak cut a path through Northeast Wisconsin as an EF3.  No one was killed and only a dozen buildings were damaged but the scar it left on Wisconsin would make you think otherwise.  From the imagery provided by Google Earth, a 40-mile-long (64 km) treeless path can be seen stretching linearly through the forest.  The path is close 3/4 of mile (1.2 km) wide at the widest point.  According to wikipedia, 14,000 acres (57 km sq) of forest were toppled by the tornado.

The following gif shows December 2005, September 2008, and November 2010:

Zoomed out for reference

Still images from the area can be seen here.

You can find it yourself on Google Earth using these coords:     45°13'N  88°30'W  

More info from sources referenced: Wikipedia

Check back in two weeks to explore a giant wildfire!

Gila National Forest, New Mexico

I've noticed Google Earth tends to not have a lot of imagery with snow.  In the same sense that clouds in the imagery can hinder the view, snow-cover is probably considered a less-than-desirable condition.  When I do happen to come across an image with snow, I have to flip back and forth between the snow view and snowless view; it just looks way too cool!  I was trying to look around for some wildfire imagery from nearby this area when I stumbled across this beautiful summer-to-winter view not far from Whitewater Baldy Mountain.

The animation below shows 1.5 years from August 2011 to February 2013:

You can find it yourself on Google Earth using these coords:     33°18'N  108°35'W

More info: Gila NF, Whitewater Baldy

Check back in two weeks to see a terrifying scar in Oklahoma.

Bastrop, Texas (II)

Man, I've been looking forward to this post for a while.  I wanted to do this back in November but was limited by available imagery.  However,  imagery became available in December so I finally got what I wanted and am proud to present to you:

The before and after of the Bastrop County Complex Wildfire!

So when this fire first broke out,  my attention was caught immediately because Bastrop State Park is one of my favorite parks in Texas.  A bad combination of drought, heat, and extreme winds helped this fire quickly became the most destructive in Texas history.  According to Wikipedia, 1,645 homes were burned across over 34,000 acres and two people were killed.  Just looking at this picture from Wikipedia's page on the event gives an idea of the magnitude of this fire:

"Oh, hello Mr. Apocalypse. ...So you vacation in Bastrop too?"

I decided to see if those clouds were tall enough to register on the Doppler RADAR and low and behold, I was able to save this gif:

That's a roughly 4-hour span where at least three smoke plumes can be seen southeast of Austin.  Two other fire plumes from other fires can be seen north-northwest of Houston.

March 31, 2011

September 7, 2011

You'll all be happy to know that LUECKE is untouched.

You can find it yourself on Google Earth using these coords:      30°06'45.25"N     97°13'43.59"W

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastrop_County_Complex_fire

Check back next week to see the effects on a lake during extreme drought.

Bastrop, Texas

So the other day I went to look and see if there were any updated satellite images from the Bastrop State Park wildfire in Texas.  Unfortunately, no images have been loaded on to Google Earth yet as far as I'm aware.  However, while searching I found something else that caught my eye, and rightly so considering...

October 21, 2005

...that's about a 3/4 mile font size! This massive forest-text that spells out the name "LUECKE" apparently belongs to a man of the same name.  I'm not even sure how he managed to do this but that's some serious landscaping.  The entire name is 2.5 miles long and holds the record of largest text in the world.

January 22, 1995

So here's the same area before he etched it.  

You can find it yourself on Google Earth using these coords:     30° 05'01.59"N     97° 08'28.16"W

More info: http://www.minezone.org/blog/2006/03/23/big-luecke/

Check back next week to see some of the fastest anthropogenic development in history.