An Early Start to the 2014 Fire Season

Bad Dad asked if it was his imagination that the air quality is better now than this morning. Was it an artifact of the sun angle?

After looking at today's two NASA MODIS images of this area, I can say that the peak of the smoke passed over us shortly before the NASA Terra satellite overpass (first image, about 10:30 AM).  When the fire first started, the fuel was abundant and the fire produced the most smoke.

By the NASA Aqua overpass (second image, about 1:30 PM), the thickest part of the smoke plume had moved past us and offshore.

Blogger is doing something very strange to the color balance of the images. Go see them yourself at the MODIS La Jolla subset page.  The Terra 7-2-1 Bands image shows two distinct hotspots.  The police already have suspects in custody for setting the fire.