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August 5, 2025 - Smoke over North America
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Heavy smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada drifted southeastward in early August 2025, shrouding much of eastern Canada and parts of the northcentral United States. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of thick, gray smoke covering North American skies on August 3. The smoke is so dense that most of the land and several Great Lakes are obscured from view.
Canada has seen more 4,002 wildfires between January 1 and August 4, 2025, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). This is similar to the number during the same dates in 2024 (4,090 fires) and slightly less than the 5-year average (4,115 fires) and 25-year average (4,702). However, the true ferocity of the 2025 fire season is seen in the total acres burned. Between January 1 and August 4, 2025, a total of 6,689,017 acres was destroyed by fire across Canada, according to CIFFC. During that same period in 2024, only 2,822,057 acres were burnt—less than half of the acreage burned so far in 2025. In addition, the five year-average of acres burned over the same dates was 3,981,227 acres and the twenty-five-year average was 2,233,730 acres. In short, although the numbers of wildfires have slightly diminished, the acreage burned has grown dramatically this year.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 8/3/2025
Resolutions:
1km (333.6 KB), 500m (1.1 MB), 250m (1.3 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Heavy smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada drifted southeastward in early August 2025, shrouding much of eastern Canada and parts of the northcentral United States. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of thick, gray smoke covering North American skies on August 3. The smoke is so dense that most of the land and several Great Lakes are obscured from view.
Canada has seen more 4,002 wildfires between January 1 and August 4, 2025, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). This is similar to the number during the same dates in 2024 (4,090 fires) and slightly less than the 5-year average (4,115 fires) and 25-year average (4,702). However, the true ferocity of the 2025 fire season is seen in the total acres burned. Between January 1 and August 4, 2025, a total of 6,689,017 acres was destroyed by fire across Canada, according to CIFFC. During that same period in 2024, only 2,822,057 acres were burnt—less than half of the acreage burned so far in 2025. In addition, the five year-average of acres burned over the same dates was 3,981,227 acres and the twenty-five-year average was 2,233,730 acres. In short, although the numbers of wildfires have slightly diminished, the acreage burned has grown dramatically this year.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 8/3/2025
Resolutions:
1km (333.6 KB), 500m (1.1 MB), 250m (1.3 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
