Severe fire threat continues in the western United States
Severe fire threat continues in the western United States. Severe fire threat continues in the western United States. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory shows fire activity in the western United States that has been fueled by heat and drought.
Many new fires were ignited or intensified by powerful wind storms in the Pacific Northwest over Labor Day weekend.
When this image was captured by Aqua and NOAA-20 satellites on September 7, 2020, smoke was lingering over several western states.
According to NASA, some fires grew so hot that they created pyrocumulus “fire clouds” that carried smoke several miles into the atmosphere.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee strongly criticized President Trump on Monday in an open letter after the President’s visit to the West Coast to discuss wildfires ravaging multiple states.
“Your refusal to address climate change — and your active steps to enable even more carbon pollution — will accelerate devastating wildfires like those you’re seeing today,” Inslee wrote in a Medium post.
Trump was part of a meeting earlier in the day, and dismissed a mention of hotter temperatures playing a key role in the wildfires. “It’ll start getting cooler,” Trump told state officials. “You just watch.”
“That is false,” Inslee responded in the open letter. “This abandonment of leadership has once again left the states on their own to fight this existential threat to our people.”
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
