Space

Fire Cloud with a Pileus on Top

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Based on a feed excerpt; full article content has not been acquired. Source evidence retrieved 29/09/2026, 17:50:24 UTC.

Briefings

In August 2026, NASA scientists captured a rare pyrocumulus event over the Sand Creek fire in Montana using the MASTER sensor on an ER-2 aircraft. The image shows a thin, circular pileus cloud forming atop the fire's smoke plume, occurring at 5:40 p.m. local time. This observation highlights extreme updraft dynamics where moist air was forced upward by the fire's heat, creating a cloud structure similar to a mountain. The event was part of the INSPYRE campaign and represents a core finding of the project, linking surface fire dynamics to convective cloud processes.

Key points

• On August 11, 2026, NASA scientists captured a pyrocumulus event over the Sand Creek fire in Montana using the MASTER sensor on an ER-2 aircraft at 5:40 p.m. local time.
• The image reveals a thin, circular pileus cloud forming atop the fire's smoke plume, demonstrating extreme updraft dynamics where moist air was forced upward by the fire's heat.

Context and limitations

This snapshot captures only one scene of the pileus cloud, which typically persists for only a few minutes before being overtaken by convection. The observation is limited to the Sand Creek fire in Montana during the August 2026 flight, and the specific spectral bands used for the visible channels are not fully detailed in the provided text.

Generated by Bittrees-hosted qwen35-2b sha256:aaf42c8b7c3c on 29/09/2026, 18:16:17 UTC. Based on publisher-provided feed evidence; may not cover the full original article. Check the source for details.

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