On the night of June 5, 2020, a lightning strike started the Bighorn Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Ariz. Extremely dry vegetation and windy conditions caused the fire to spread quickly. By June 30, the multi-agency incident information system, InciWeb, reported that it had ballooned to more than 114,000 acres and that it was about 45 percent contained.
NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument aboard the Terra satellite imaged some of the burned area on June 29. In this image, vegetation is shown in red, and burned areas appear dark gray. It covers an area 20 by 30 miles (33 by 48 kilometers).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL – Caltech
