On the color image the St. Johns River is seen as a dark somewhat sinuous feature running north/south in northeastern Florida. Just to the west of the river is a parallel band of thunderstorms, the high storm clouds cast shadows toward the east from the low sun in the west. The image is scaled to bring out the fainter smoke plumes so the storm clouds are saturated.
The fires are marked by a series of smoke plumes blowing toward the west between the St. Johns River and Cape Canaveral. The plumes appear yellow in this color combination. Another area of smoke is visible near the northwest corner of the color image near Perry. What appears to be an atmospheric internal wave is seen near the west edge of the picture.
The image on the right is from AVHRR channel 3 which cuts through the smoke and shows the fires themselves as bright areas. The deep black areas are clouds which are colder and darker than the warm earth below. Note the channel 3 image shows smaller fires than the color composite smoke plume image.