DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z July 21, 2009

Alaska/Canada/North Central US:
Moderately dense to dense smoke continues to emanate from a large number
of fires burning across portions of Alaska and the Yukon province of
northwestern Canada. The area of smoke covered an extensive portion of
northern Alaska and then extended southeast into the Yukon/Northwest
Territories and then through much of Alberta and Saskatchewan and
was approaching the United States/Canadian border near Montana and
the Dakotas.

Southern British Columbia/Washington/Northern Idaho/Western Montana:
The complex of fires over southern British Columbia continues to produce
a moderately to locally dense smoke plume that covers a good portion of
eastern Washington state, extreme northern Idaho and extreme northwest
Montana.

Northern California/Southern Oregon and Northern Utah/Southwestern
Wyoming/Northwestern Colorado:
The area of moderately dense smoke that originated from the fire over
eastern Siskiyou county in northern California was most recently located
over northern Utah, southwestern Wyoming and northwestern Colorado.
Closer to the actual fire, a large area of extremely dense smoke was
detected from Siskiyou county in northern California to Klamath county
in southcentral Oregon.

Hanna

More information on the areas of smoke described above as well as others
can be found at the locations listed below.

THE FORMAT OF THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS BEING MODIFIED. IT WILL NO LONGER
DESCRIBE THE VARIOUS PLUMES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES. THESE
PLUMES ARE DEPICTED IN VARIOUS GRAPHIC FORMATS ON OUR WEB SITE:

JPEG:   http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/hms.html
GIS:    http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm
KML:    http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/kml.html

THIS TEXT PRODUCT WILL CONTINUE TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF SMOKE
WHICH HAVE BECOME DETACHED FROM AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE
SOURCE FIRE, TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. IT WILL ALSO
STILL INCLUDE DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOWING DUST.

ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THESE CHANGES OR THE SMOKE TEXT
PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov

Unless otherwise indicated:

Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.

Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.

A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.

Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.