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Aftermath of the Franklin Fire, Malibu, California

Image captured on Dec 18, 2024, by the MSI instrument aboard ESA's Sentinel-2B platform.

These false-color (Bands 12-8A-4) reflectance images show before and after images of the Franklin Fire in Malibu, California. The images were captured by the Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) instrument aboard the ESA (European Space Agency) Sentinel-2B platform. Swipe the bar left and right to see the before image from December 3, 2024, on the "A" left side; the after image from December 18, 2024, on the "B" right side; and the extent burned during that fire event (burned area appears red, and unburned vegetation is green). Click the icon in the upper right corner to interactively explore this fire in NASA Worldview.

The Franklin Fire began on December 9, 2024, and strong Santa Ana winds caused the fire to rapidly spread to 2,600 acres (11 square kilometers) within a day. The fire burned more than 4,00 acres (16 square kilometers). 

The image above shows the OPERA Vegetation Disturbance Status (Color Index) layer overlaid on top of the false color (bands 12=8A-4) reflectance image on December 18, 2024. This layer maps vegetation disturbance, specifically vegetation cover loss, by pixel. Vegetation disturbance is mapped where there is an indicated decrease in vegetation cover within a 30m pixel. The displayed layer describes vegetation disturbance status based on confidence, magnitude of loss, and whether it is ongoing. 

There are three confidence levels: "first detection," which is loss detected in only the most recent observation; "provisional" upon a second detection of vegetation loss; and "confirmed" once there are sufficient loss detections to reach high confidence of disturbance. These are reported for both disturbances with <50% vegetation cover loss and those with ≥50% loss, whether diffuse across an entire pixel or just a portion of it. These labels persist as long as the anomalies continue to be detected. Once a location no longer has low vegetation cover, confirmed alerts are labeled as "finished" and the others are reset to no disturbance.

In this case, most of the burned area pixels are identified as "Provisional <50%" (greenish khaki color) which indicates this is the second detection of vegetation loss, which further confirms that the area lost vegetation due to the fire.

The input dataset for generating each product is the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) dataset. The OPERA Land Surface Disturbance (L3) imagery layer is available through the Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project.

Visit Worldview to visualize near real-time imagery from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS); find more imagery in our Worldview weekly image archive.

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