Past Posts

VIIRS Nightfire Sees Multiple Wildfires in Arizona By Mitch Burcham and Elijah Mt. Castle Continuing our ongoing efforts to report accurate and timely news related to fires around the world, the team at Earth Observation Group at the Payne Institute for Public Policy...

VNF - A Tool Helping Fight Climate Change By William Helms One of the potentially impactful abilities of VIIRS NightFire (VNF) is its capability to help estimate the amount of gas burned by routine flaring at oil fields. The constant burning of gas contributes to...

Festival Lights Seen from Space By William Helms Here we take a look at a couple large festivals that are remote enough to become their own visible light source. Paradiso is a festival usually held in mid-June at the Gorge Amphitheatre in the state of Washington. Due...

Wildfire in Fort à La Corne, Canada More forest fire activity has recently been pinpointed by VIIRS Nightfire technology. This image over Fort à La Corne, Canada depicts heat signatures from the forest inferno. These signatures are substantially hotter than those of...

Biebrza National Park Fires in Poland Tragedy strikes in Poland as nearly 10% of the country's largest national park goes up in flames. As a result of one of the longest droughts in more than a decade, farmers near Biebrza National Park have been forced to burn crop...

Anak Krakatau Erupts Anak Krakatau volcano erupts in Indonesia April 10th 2020. The volcano has been known to cause deadly eruptions. In 2008 the volcano's eruption caused a massive tsunami that devastated neighboring islands, killing 437 people. This eruption was not...

Slash and Burn Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa These purple, blue, and green placemarks showing heat signatures recorded by VIIRS Nightfire (VNF) over Africa have put a perspective on the vast use of slash and burn farming techniques happening as of Feb. 26, 2020....

vbd near spratly islands This image shows VIIRS boat detections (VBD) from last night in the South China Sea.  The Spratly Island disputed waters are shown in yellow.   Portions of the zone are claimed by Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Brunei.  In...

Decrease of VBD detections amid COVID-19 near Hong Kong The Chinese Lunar New Year is a day of celebration around the world. It's a huge holiday in China, many industries close for several days. With the rise of COVID-19 and growing concerns of infection Hong Kong...