On 03 July a pyroCb formed in British Columbia around 01:00 UTC at 59.7 N 128.2 W.GOES-15 detected the smoke plume and pyroCb cloud, as well as the fire hot spot. Starting at 23:00 UTC on 02 July, the animation below shows visible (.63 μm) on the left and shortwave IR (3.9 μm) on the right (click image to play animation). In the shortwave IR images the red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source region.
GOES-15 0.63 μm visible (left) and 3.9 μm shortwave IR (right) images (click to play animation)
GOES-15 10.7 μm IR images (click to play animation)
On 03 July OMPS Aerosol Index (AI) images were useful to see the transport of the smoke. From the AI image (below; courtesy of Colin Seftor), the max AI was 712.3 at 62.11 N 131.18 W at 20:50 UTC which is northwest of the fire. Using backward trajectory it can be found that this max AI is from this pyroCb and the pyroCb in Yukon.
OMPS Aerosol Index image on 03 July (click to enlarge)
In addition, CALIPSO LIDAR was used to investigate the transport of smoke. This LIDAR shows the height of the clouds from the wildfire. The first image below is the 532 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter plot on 03 July from 11:02 UTC to 11:13 UTC. The smoke from this fire is shown on the right side of the plot around 59 N indicated by a grey color, continuing southeastward (towards the left of the plot). It is apparent that the source of the fire is around 58 N due to the smoke increasing in altitude as the LIDAR moves further southeast. The next image is the Depolarization plot in which the smoke indicated by a red/pink color. The third image is 1064 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter plot, the smoke on this plot is indicated by a light grey color. The fourth image is the Attenuated Ratio plot between 1064 nm and 532 nm. The smoke is indicated by teal and purple pixels in this plot. The fifth image is the Vertical Feature Mask plot. This plot shows the different features that are in the atmosphere, in this plot the smoke is considered a cloud and indicated by a light blue color. The last image shows the subtype of the aerosols that have been detected by the LIDAR. This shows that the aerosols that the LIDAR have detected are smoke (indicated by black pixels) around 59 N on the right side of the plot.
CALIPSO 532 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter on 03 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO Depolarization Ration on 03 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO 1064 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter on 03 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO Attenuated Color Ratio between 1064 nm and 532 nm on 03 July (click to enlarge image)
CALIPSO Vertical Feature Mask on 03 July (click to enlarge image)
CALIPSO Aerosol Subtype plot on 03 July (click to enlarge image)