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The blue and green colour small areas suggest this is a false color image that maps colours to a value and coincidentally looks like a fire.

Presumably it's measuring heat or something vaguely relevant but I don't trust my immediate visceral reaction to it.




The image filename contains SWIR which is a clue.

Several instruments can sense emissions in short-wave IR which light up for fires (and hot smoke plumes, and some industrial plants). E.g., VIIRS which is a successor to MODIS (https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/instruments/viirs/viirs-...).

The resolution in the posted image is much better than satellite, however. This implies that it's an airborne platform like FIRIS (https://wifire.ucsd.edu/firis-in-depth). It also uses IR.


The image has the label MAXAR at top right. I believe that company only does satellite imagery? Also articles that link to the image call it satellite data, eg: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/us/video/images-fire-before-a...


They've been doing FIRIS flights over the fires under the call sign INTEL 24




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