Watching the visible satellite looks like there might be some storms that blew up in central New Mexico. A lot of clouds there today so hard to see the plumes but at the beginning of the 12 hour loop you can really see how extensive the smoke is. It is crazy stuff.
A good satellite resource for wildfires is MODIS. There are two satellites, Terra, and Aqua.
This web site does a nice job of making the MODIS data available. The False color option is helpful in showing current actual hot spots, and also distinctly shows the burned area in most cases (sometimes for many, many months after the fire is gone). Today the Terra pass got a pretty good look at the Las Conchas fire, but when Aqua came over a little later there was enough cloud cover to make it mostly a waste of time--though you could still see the smoke plume heading multiple states to the east.
This is probably a dumb question (I frequently ask them) where do they get enough water and such to fight these fires there? I know they use a lot of retardent chems and clearing of brush and backfires, but they need water too.
Mark
Depends on the resource. The heavy air tankers are operating out of Kirtland Air Force Base, which shares runways with the Albuquerque civil airport. Their slurry is prepared on site, I think, and the water component probably comes right out of municipal supply. They can only carry about 3000 gallons per flight, and don't do all that many flights, so this is not a major consumption.
The helicopters, I think, generally dip their buckets to fill them in the nearest suitable water, which will usually be a lake or stream. Not returning to base can give them a drastically faster cycle rate than heavy air or even SEAT (Single Engine Air Tanker--think of a crop duster dropping retardant).
Ground crews do use trucks with some water tankage, but, I suspect to allow mobility on generally bad wildland roads, they are quite small in tankage compared to the usual city trucks. I doubt they refill them often. Ground fighting is more about creating breaks in the continuity of fuel, either by digging (a bulldozer is a major tool, though for local control a firefighter swinging a Pulaski is a definite factor), or controlled burning.
Anyway, "fighting" these fires these days is mostly about structure protection--trying to defend valued assets, not trying to stop the fire as a whole. When they stop, they mostly have burned to the limit of continuous fuel, or the weather has turned unfavorable.
