Wildfire Safety and Preparedness

Burn Scar From California's Sherpa Fire Seen From Space

A large burn scar from the Sherpa fire is seen west of Santa Barbara, California, on June 19, 2016.
(NASA)

Western wildfires are often started in remote areas, and it becomes an around-the-clock battle to keep them from invading neighborhoods filled with homes. If these infernos stay in the mountains or forested areas, it can be hard to see the scope of the devastation from any angle other than the one NASA can retrieve from high above Earth.

The image above shows the area torched by Southern California's Sherpa fire, which burned for most of June and into July west of Santa Barbara County. Taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on the Terra satellite, the false-color image shows the burn scar left behind, labeled on the left side of the picture.

The photo used both infrared and visible light, according to NASA's Earth Observatory, showing unburned forest in gray shading, developed areas in white and vegetation-covered land in green.

The Sherpa fire forced mandatory evacuations in southern Santa Barbara County as it burned toward the sea. It was one of several large infernos in California early this fire season - a season in which U.S. Forest Service officials are already concerned they'll run out of funding to battle all the wildfires.

According to InciWeb, officials continue to investigate what caused the fire. InciWeb's final update came on the afternoon of June 30, when the wildfire was 93 percent contained. At that time, the fire had claimed 7,474 acres.

A firefighting airplane captured the blaze from another angle on June 15: