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COOL News

Fire Along the Garden State Parkway -- June 2, 2002

On Sunday June 2, 2002, around 1:00 PM, a large fire started in Berkeley Township, NJ, between exits 60 and 80 on the Garden State Parkway. Strong winds and a season of below-average rainfall caused the fire to grow rapidly.

In all it took over 300 firefighters working on the ground and in helicopters, to contain the blaze which claimed almost 1,300 acres and damaged a dozen homes throughout the course of the day.

The strong winds blew the smoke hundreds of miles away, and thanks to a clear day, the view from space shows just how large the fire was. Due to strong Northwesterly winds around 20 knots, which persisted throughout the day, the cloud was blown tens of miles directly out to sea.

In the COOL Lab, processed data from the NOAA/AVHRR satellites shows quite clearly the smoke trail from the fire. The image to the right shows the visible channel from the NOAA-16 satellite. This image was taken around 2:40 in the afternoon, when the fire was only about 2 hours old.