The map above shows Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite (Day/Night Band) imagery of the Mullica River Fire in New Jersey on June 20, 2022. This image was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The fire is visible southeast of Philadelphia and northwest of Atlantic City.
Click on the map to visit Worldview for full functionality. Swipe the center bar left and right to see how the active fire detections in red on the left correspond to the yellow "night lights" in the image of the same night on the right. This is in sharp contrast to all of the other yellow nighttime lights emanating from surrounding cities, towns, and major roadways.
According to the Washington Post, the fire began on June 19, 2022, and had grown to 12,000 acres and was 70% contained as of June 20, 2022, 7:44 p.m., ET (as of Tuesday evening, June 21, the fire was reported to be mostly contained). The fire occurred in the Wharton State Forest, which is in the Pine Barrens ecosystem.
The Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite (Day/Night Band) layer is a false color composite created using the VIIRS at-sensor radiance and the brightness temperatures from the M15 band. The false color scheme produces nighttime city lights and active fires in shades of yellow and nighttime cloud presence in shades of blue. During bright moonlight conditions, moonlight reflected from cloud tops and the land surface may also provide a yellow hue to those features.
Learn more about the Blue/Yellow composite: New Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite Product Makes Detecting Power Outages Easier
Visit Worldview to visualize near real-time imagery from NASA's EOSDIS, and check out more Worldview weekly images in our archive.
Source: New Jersey Wildfire, Largest Since 2007, Mostly Contained, Officials Say. Washington Post, June 21, 2022 (published 12:25 p.m.; updated 6:35 p.m., EDT).
