Weather, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 21, 2020

Astronaut spots California wildfires from space, sends 'thoughts and prayers' to victims

California is on fire, with more than 360 individual blazes scorching across the state. Unsurprisingly, the effects are visible from space, as NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy shared images today (Aug. 21) of huge billows of smoke above California as seen from his perch on the International Space Station. Thanks to...

Sep 7, 2020

Zombie wildfires are blazing through the Arctic, causing record burning

Zombie wildfires that were smoldering beneath the Arctic ice all winter suddenly flared to life this summer when the snow and ice above it melted, new monitoring data reveals. And this year has been the worst for Arctic wildfires on record, since reliable monitoring began 17 years ago. Arctic fires...

Sep 8, 2020

Record-breaking 2.2 million acres burned by California wildfires

California is having a record-breaking year of flames, as dozens of wildfires have set the state ablaze. Wildfires have burned more than 2.2 million acres (8,903 square kilometers) across California this year, killing at least eight people and destroying more than 3,300 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry...

Sep 10, 2020

Stark new imagery reveals the scary extent of West Coast wildfires

Disturbing new satellite imagery shows the vast scope of the wildfires burning in Washington, Oregon and California. Dozens of fires have turned skies orange, rained ash on cities and towns, destroyed several million acres of land and killed at least seven people. The Sept. 8 imagery comes courtesy of the...

Oct 19, 2020

Severe burn damage from California wildfires seen from space

New satellite imagery of California reveals not just the extent of its wildfire damage, but the depth of the loss. The maps derived from the satellite data show how far two major fires spread as well as how badly each region burned. Darker colors represent near-complete loss — charred landscapes...

Oct 23, 2020

Explosive growth of Colorado wildfire seen from space

A massive wildfire in Colorado is threatening homes and has closed a National Park after it ballooned in size, growing by 6,000 acres (2,428 hectares) in an hour on Wednesday (Oct. 21). The East Troublesome Fire has burned 170,163 acres (68,862.5 hectares) as of Friday morning and triggered evacuations stretching...

May 7, 2021

Giant sequoia tree still smoldering 9 months after devastating California wildfires

A giant sequoia tree in California's Sequoia National Park is still smoldering months after devastating wildfires hit the region last summer. Scientists recently found the tree while surveying the park to determine the effects of the 2020 Castle Fire, according to a statement from the National Park Service. The tree,...

May 19, 2021

'Zombie wildfires' that smoldered beneath the snow in Siberia are raging again

Hundreds of fires are raging across Russia as wildfire season descends on the world's largest country ahead of schedule, according to news reports. Some parts of the country have already reported a record number of spring wildfires, according to The Siberian Times, and smoke plumes from some Siberian forest fires...

Jul 23, 2021

Wildfire smoke spreads across US in striking images from space

NASA has released striking satellite images of wildfire smoke clouds covering vast swaths of the U.S., from the West Coast all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. NASA's Earth Observatory released the two images on July 23. The first image, captured on July 20 using the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer...

Aug 5, 2021

Wildfire prompts evacuation at Turkey power plant

One of the many raging wildfires in Turkey reached a coal-fired power plant on the country's southwestern coast on Wednesday (Aug. 4), prompting evacuations, according to recent news reports. In the past week, Turkey has been battling intense wildfires, most of them along the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea coasts,...

Aug 11, 2021

Siberian wildfires dwarf all others on Earth combined

Smoke from massive wildfires in Russia's Siberia region has reached the geographic North Pole for the first time in recorded history, according to NASA — while the forest blazes themselves are bigger than all the other wildfires currently burning in the world combined, one expert said. The U.S space agency...

Aug 31, 2021

Photos: Devastating Caldor wildfire threatens Lake Tahoe

The Caldor wildfire ignited near the Sierra town of Pollock Pines, California on Aug. 14, then exploded in size thanks to high winds just a few days later. As of Aug. 31, the fire had burned through 191,000 acres (77,200 hectares) and was less than 20% contained. In the last...

Oct 26, 2021

Wildfires burned Antarctica 75 million years ago, charcoal remnants reveal

Raging wildfires tore through Antarctica 75 million years ago, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, a new study finds. During the late Cretaceous period (100 million to 66 million years ago), one of the warmest periods on Earth, Antarctica's James Ross Island was home to a temperate forest of...

Jan 7, 2022

'Cosmic wildfires' burn bright in new photo of the Flame Nebula

A fiery new photograph of the Flame Nebula depicts the emissions from brand-new stars, burning through space like cosmic wildfires. These wildfires don't actually burn hot — the orange and yellow regions captured in this image are actually only a few tens of degrees warmer than absolute zero, the point...

Jul 19, 2022

Wildfires blaze in London during record heatwave

As England bakes under record-breaking heat, a surge in wildfires has led the London Fire Brigade to declare the blazes a major incident in the nation's capital, where temperatures recently exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) for the very first time. Burnt ash and smoke filled London's air as...