DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z October 2, 2005
California: Smoke associated with the Southern California fires of Topanga and Burbank is much less discernible this evening than over the past couple of days. Some smoke earlier today was visible extending from the Burbank fire northwestward to the Ventura County line. A relatively small patch of smoke from a fire detected over southwestern San Bernardino County was visible spreading eastward this evening. Remainder of the Western US: A rapidly growing fire near the northeastern Utah(Dagget County)-northwestern Colorado(Moffat County) border was producing a smoke plume spreading northeastward just before sunset. The intensity of this fire on satellite imagery suggests it is likely producing a very thick smoke plume after sunset. Other fires located in the Dixie National Forest and Bryce Canyon National Park in western Garfield County of south central Utah were also producing smoke plumes spreading northeastward. Thick smoke from a large fire in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge of southwestern Arizona was observed moving northeastward toward the western suburbs of Phoenix. Additional wildfires were analyzed this evening over extreme northwestern New Mexico, central and northwestern Wyoming, and the central Sierras in California. These fires also had smoke plumes associated with them that were moving generally northward or northeastward. Clouds from an approaching frontal system had overspread Idaho making detection of smoke impossible even though satellite data continued to detect several fires through the cloudiness. Central US: Clusters of fires across the northwestern Texas Panhandle, southwestern and south central Kansas were responsible for localized patches of smoke that were moving off to the northeast. A concentrated area of what is believed to be primarily agricultural burns located mainly over southeastern Missouri was producing an area of smoke which had drifted northward into southern Illinois. A thick smoke plume from at least 2 large fires over northern Cook County of northeastern Minnesota, near the US-Canadian border, was detected spreading northward into Canada this evening. JS