The Oak Fire

The Oak Fire started on July 22nd, 2022 at 2:10 PM PDT near Carstens Road and Highway 140 in Mariposa County, west of Yosemite. The fire has burned over 19,000 acres. In the first few days of the Oak Fire, over 1,400 structures were threatened, 3 were damaged, and 41 destroyed. Evacuation orders and road closures were issued throughout the region. The Oak Fire was captured in an ECOSTRESS Land Surface Temperature image on July 22nd with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Celsius. ECOSTRESS is a thermal instrument on the International Space Station that measures the temperature of the ground, which is hotter than the air temperature during the day. It was launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify critical thresholds of water use and water stress in plants and to detect the timing, location, and predictive factors leading to plant water uptake decline and/or cessation. The nature of the high-resolution data provided by ECOSTRESS allows it to record heat related phenomena such as heat waves and wildfires. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25481