On 03 July a pyroCb was produced at 23:30 in Alberta (58.2 N 118.3 W). GOES-15 detected the smoke plume and pyroCb cloud, as well as the fire hot spot. Starting at 22:00 UTC on 03 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)
To further investigate the transport of smoke from this fire CALIPSO was used. This LIDAR shows the height of the clouds from the wildfire. The first image below is the 532nm Total Attenuated Backscatter plot on 04 July from 19:46 UTC to 19:59 UTC. The smoke from this fire can be seen around 58 N indicated by a white/light grey color. In addition, the transport of smoke southeast is shown on the plot around 44 N. The next image is the Depolarization image the smoke is 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 the teal and purple pixels. The fifth image is the Vertical Feature Mask. This plot shows the different features that are in the atmosphere, the smoke is attributed as a cloud on this plot and is 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 has detected are smoke (indicated by the black pixels) around 58 N and southeastward around 44 N. This LIDAR data helped to conclude the direction of the transport of the smoke from this fire.
CALIPSO 532 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter on 04 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO Depolarization Ration on 04 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO 1064 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter on 04 July (click to enlarge)
CALIPSO Attenuated Color Ratio between 1064 nm and 532 nm on 04 July (click to enlarge image)
CALIPSO Vertical Feature Mask on 04 July (click to enlarge image)
CALIPSO Aerosol Subtype plot on 04 July (click to enlarge image)