(Press-News.org) The largest fire in the history of the state of Arizona continues to burn and emergency managers and responders are using satellite data from a variety of instruments to plan their firefighting containment strategies and mitigation efforts once the fires are out.
The Landsat 5 satellite captured images of the Wallow North and Horseshoe 2 fires burning in eastern Arizona on June 15, 2011 at 19:54:23 Zulu (3:54 p.m. EDT). Both images are false-colored to allow ease of identification of various objects that will help firefighters and emergency managers. In the images burn scars appear in red and ongoing fire in bright red. Vegetation is colored green, smoke is colored blue and bare ground is tan-colored. The Landsat 5 image is a false color image with a 7, 4, 2 band combination.
The Wallow fire began May 29, 2011 in the Bear Wallow Wilderness area located in eastern Arizona. High winds and low humidity meant that by June 14, 2011 the Wallow Fire became Arizona's largest wildfire to date with over 487,016 acres burned. On the morning of June 16 the fire is now 29 percent contained, according to Inciweb. Inciweb, the "Incident Information System" website (www.inciweb.org) is an interagency all-risk incident information management system.
The National Weather Service has posted a Red Flag Warning for June 16 and 17. The warning forecasts strong winds from the southwest with gusts to between 35 and 45 mph.
Inciweb reported that the Horseshoe 2 Fire began on May 8 in Horseshoe Canyon on the Douglas Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest, located in southeast Arizona. The Chiricahua National Monument in the northern area of the fire was closed on June 9 and remains closed. As of June 16, 184,198 acres had burned, and the fire is reported as 60 percent contained.
The Landsat series of satellites is used by emergency managers to acquire a range of imagery and data, from floods to fires. Landsat has also recently provided images of the flooding of the Mississippi River.
The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat satellites have been consistently gathering data about our planet since 1972. They continue to improve and expand this unparalleled record of Earth's changing landscapes, for the benefit of all. The next Landsat satellite is scheduled to launch in December 2012.
INFORMATION:
For more information about Landsat, visit:
http://landsat.usgs.gov/ or
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
For more information about the Landsat launching in 2012:
http://ldcm.gsfc.nasa.gov
Landsat 5 satellite helps emergency managers fight largest fire in Arizona history
2011-06-17
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
UT Southwestern researchers uncover why ketamine produces a fast antidepressant response
2011-06-17
DALLAS – June 16, 2011 – UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists are shedding new light on why the anesthetic drug ketamine produces a fast-acting antidepressant response in patients with treatment-resistant depression.
The drug's robust effect at low doses as a fast-acting antidepressant potentially has use in emergency rooms with high-risk patients.
"Ketamine produces a very sharp increase that immediately relieves depression," said Dr. Lisa Monteggia, associate professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study published June 15 in Nature.
Typical ...
Hematologist discovers, names the 'Toms River' blood mutation in N.J. family
2011-06-17
A newborn described as a "happy blue baby" because of her bluish skin color but healthy appearance made a small mark in medical history when one of her physicians discovered something new in her genes—the hemoglobin Toms River mutation.
Scientists have identified hundreds of mutations in genes that carry instructions for producing hemoglobin—the four-part protein that carries oxygen in everyone's red blood cells. By tradition, whoever discovers a mutation in hemoglobin genes names it after the hometown of the patient, said pediatric hematologist Mitchell J. Weiss, M.D., ...
Look before you leap: Teens still learning to plan ahead
2011-06-17
Although most teens have the knowledge and reasoning ability to make decisions as rationally as adults, their tendency to make much riskier choices suggests that they still lack some key component of wise decision making. Why is this so? Because adolescents may not bother to use those thinking skills before they act. That's the finding of a new study by researchers at Temple University that appears in the journal Child Development.
"The study's findings have important implications for debates about whether adolescents should be held to the same standards of criminal and ...
Home learning experiences boost low-income kids' school readiness
2011-06-17
Home learning experiences that are consistently supportive in the early years may boost low-income children's readiness for school. That's the finding of a new longitudinal study that appears in the journal Child Development.
The study was done by researchers at New York University based on research conducted as part of the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, which is funded by the Administration for Children and Families. The study was also supported by the National Science Foundation.
Previous research has found that on average, children living ...
Early experience found critical for language development
2011-06-17
We know that poor social and physical environments can harm young children's cognitive and behavioral development, and that development often improves in better environments. Now a new study of children living in institutions has found that intervening early can help young children develop language, with those placed in better care by 15 months showing language skills similar to children raised by their biological parents.
The study, in the journal Child Development, was conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota, Ohio University, The Ohio State University, ...
Restoring memory, repairing damaged brains
2011-06-17
Scientists have developed a way to turn memories on and off—literally with the flip of a switch.
Using an electronic system that duplicates the neural signals associated with memory, they managed to replicate the brain function in rats associated with long-term learned behavior, even when the rats had been drugged to forget.
"Flip the switch on, and the rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget," said Theodore Berger of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Berger is the lead author of an article that will be published ...
American Cancer Society report finds continued progress in reducing cancer mortality
2011-06-17
ATLANTA – June 17, 2011 – A steady reduction in overall cancer death rates translates to the avoidance of about 898,000 deaths from cancer between 1990 and 2007, according to the latest statistics from the American Cancer Society. However, the report, Cancer Statistics 2011, and its companion consumer publication Cancer Facts & Figures 2011 find that progress has not benefitted all segments of the population equally. A special section of the report finds cancer death rates for individuals with the least education are more than twice those of the most educated and that closing ...
Etanercept shows promise for treating dermatomyositis
2011-06-17
A multicenter pilot study of etanercept for treatment of dermatomyositis found no major safety concerns and many patients treated with the drug were successfully weaned from steroid therapy. These results are encouraging, but larger studies are needed to further investigate the safety and efficacy of etanercept. Results of this clinical trial are available in Annals of Neurology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Neurological Association.
Dermatomyositis is a type of inflammatory myopathy that causes inflammation and progressive weakness ...
Learning ZoneXpress is First Company to Offer a Spanish-Language Version of the USDA's New MyPlate Nutrition Initiative
2011-06-17
A Spanish-language version of the popular MyPlate poster and handouts tablet is now available from Learning ZoneXpress.
MyPlate is the USDA's new healthy eating guide, replacing the familiar but confusing food pyramid. MyPlate clearly shows that half of all food intake should be fruits and vegetables, with the other half split between grains and protein-rich foods. It also encourages choosing fat-free or low-fat dairy products. It was unveiled on June 2 by First Lady Michelle Obama, who has repeatedly promoted better eating and healthier living - especially for children ...
International team works out secrets of one of world's most successful patient safety programs
2011-06-17
A team of social scientists and medical and nursing researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom has pinpointed how a programme, which ran in more than 100 hospital intensive care units in Michigan, dramatically reduced the rates of potentially deadly central line bloodstream infections to become one of the world's most successful patient safety programmes.
Funded in part by the Health Foundation in the UK, the collaboration between researchers at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Leicester and the University of Pennsylvania, has led to a deeper ...