The past four days have seen one of California's biggest fires in history burning its way toward one of the country's most beloved national parks. The Rim fire has burned around 160,000 acres so far, including 21,000 acres inside the park.
The images above were taken each night from August 23 to August 26 by NASA's Suomi NPP satellite. The size of the fire can be clearly seen (especially when compared to familiar nearby cities like Las Vegas, Reno and San Francisco as well as Lake Tahoe in this bigger image, taken by the same satellite).
Officials report they have the blaze 20 percent contained as of this morning, up from just 7 percent two days ago. This is already the second largest fire within Yosemite's borders. In 1996 the Ackerson fire burned just under 60,000 of the park's acres.
The Rim fire has been incredibly difficult to fight due to hot weather and arid conditions after an especially dry winter. The fire is currently threatening more than 4,000 structures, two ancient groves of giant sequoias. Ash from the fire is threatening the water supply for 2.6 million residents of San Francisco in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir 150 miles away. Nearly 4,000 firefighters have been called in to the area.
The image below was taken from the International Space Station on August 26 by astronaut Karen Nyberg.
Images: Above: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon / NASA Earth Observatory, using VIIRS Day Night Band data. Below: View of the Rim fire from the International Space Station on August 26 taken by astronaut Karen Nyberg (@AstroKarenN).
