Area on Jun 16, 1996
8:21 AM MDT in the morning.

This is an AVHRR 3 channel (1,2,3) color composite of south-central Utah. Visible in this image are clouds but no smoke. Since this is a morning view clouds have shadows on their west sides. Colder clouds appear more yellow (they are higher). Lingering snow appears yellow on some of the high mountain areas.

Area on Jun 17, 1996
7:23 PM MDT in the evening.

This is an evening view of the same area so the landforms are lighted from the west instead of the the east as above.

A smoke plume is seen starting at a blue spot and fanning out toward the northeast. In this image blue is from channel 3 which is in the infrared and is a mixture of reflected and emitted IR radiation. Since the fire is hot it appears bright in channel 3 so blue in this image.

Same area and time in the thermal channel

This view is from AVHRR channel 4 only. Channel 4 is in the thermal infrared so shows temperature variations. A bright spot occurs at the position of the fire indicating a higher temperature. Other brightness variations across the image are from temperature differences due to both how much sunlight has warmed the surface (slope of the land) and land elevation (mountains are colder). Clouds are black in this view due to their cold temperatures.