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There are a number of large fires occurring throughout much of central and northern Alberta, Canada today and NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of them. The town of Slave Lake has already suffered major losses. The Slave Lake fire can be seen in the middle of this satellite image from NASA’s Aqua satellite. The two red areas just south of the lake are the locations of the fires and the smoke appears to be blowing in a northwesterly direction.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this visible image of fires (red areas) and smoke from the various fires raging on May 15, 2011 at 19:45 UTC (3:45 p.m. EDT).

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on May 16, Canadian officials reported wildfires had destroyed or damaged 40 percent of the town of Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada, forcing thousands to flee their homes. On May 16 the fire was uncontained and has scorched 700 hectares (2.7 square miles). Images from the fire can be seen on CTV’s (Canadian Television) website at: http://edmonton.ctv.ca/gallery/html/edm_slavelake_gallery_051611/photo_2.html

On the top right of the image is a fire in the Fort McMurray District that had burned 25,000 hectares (96 square miles), according to the Government of Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development website. Other large fires raging include the fire about 3 miles (five kilometers) north of the Fort Chipewyan winter road access point at 16,000 hectares (62 square miles) north of Fort McKay that covers 500 hectares (1.9 square miles), and a fire west of the Fort Hills area burning up to 250 hectares (approximately one mile).

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Rob Gutro.