April 14, 2023 - Burn Scars across Eastern Kansas

[image04142023_main.jpg] [image04142023_rollover.jpg]

April 12, 2023 March 19, 2023
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Strong winds, unseasonably warm air temperatures, and extremely dry
prairie grasses set the stage for an outbreak of wildfires in Kansas
between late March and early April 2023. Firefighters had their hands
full battling dozens of fires, both large and small.

While the cause of most of the wildfires wasn’t known, others were due
to escaped fires ignited to manage land. According to the Riley County
government website, two major fires in that county on April 10 were
prescribed burns that got out of control. Combined, they had burnt more
than 3,500 acres. Prescribed burns are used to manage agricultural
lands and prairie grassland, and spring is a prime time for such burns.
Such burns are typically closely managed, but may escape control even
in the best of conditions. In extreme fire weather, such as experienced
in central and eastern Kansas over the last month, escaped burns can
quickly become catastrophic.

On April 12, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly issued a verbal declaration of
disaster emergency, due to the amount of wildland fires across the
state. According to the state Fire Service website, as of April 13 much
of Kansas is under Red Flag Warnings-Extreme Fire Danger due to high
winds and low relative humidity. The report states, “Fire departments
in many areas have been run ragged with multiple fires a day, and
multi-day fires recently. Most of KS remains very dry, and getting
warmer. Fire danger indices are at or above the 95th percentile in all
but the southeast, where greenup is progressing.”

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Terra satellite acquired two false-color images of eastern
Kansas, one on April 12 and the other on March 19. The images are
easily compared by tapping on the dates to toggle between the two.

In this type of false-color image, vegetation appears green, open land
looks tan or brown, and water is blue. In addition, burn scars—areas
recently scorched by fire—may appear brown, brick red, or black,
depending on various factors such as the soil type, the heat of the
burn, how long ago the burn occurred, and if any vegetation remained or
regrew in the scar. In the April 12 image, it is easy to see an
abundance of brick-red burn scars. The majority of these sit in a rough
triangle between the towns of Topeka (northeast), Manhattan
(northwest), and Wichita (south and west of Manhattan). Toggling to the
March 19 image, it’s obvious that these are all very recent burns. In
fact, a few have active fires (red hot spots) at their edges.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 4/12/2023
Resolutions: 1km (397 KB), 500m (878.6 KB), 250m (559.5 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-04-14

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