06.24.2008 2:45 pm
Lightning triggered hundreds of fires in California
Hundreds of fires triggered by lightening have hit California recent days. Many of the state’s large national forests has been burned, especially Northern California.
The following image captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on Monday, June 23, 2008 shows the state of fires over the region. Places where the sensor detected actively burning fires are outlined in red.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
Dr. Abduwasit Ghulam is a geospatial and environmental scientist from the Center for Environmental Sciences at Saint Louis University. He has been actively involved in research and education in remote sensing and GIS, climate change, human interactions on the changing environment and natural disasters such as droughts and floods. 
Beautiful image. Just flew over the western portion of the fires, and it’s a staggering sight.