Smoke blows off the Pacific Palisades fire of January 2025 in this satellite image. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory (Wanmei Liang)/NASA EOSDIS LANCE/GIBS/ESA This first phase of the FireSat ...

A new satellite image released by the NASA Earth Observatory has captured the dramatic plumes of smoke coming from the wildfires in Oklahoma that have devastated the state since Friday.

Google has partnered with numerous other agencies to launch FireSat, a first-of-its-kind wildfire detection system.

According to Google, current satellite systems rely on low-resolution imagery and cover a particular area only once every 12 hours to spot significantly large wildfires spanning a couple of acres.

Most wildfire tracking today uses aerial photography via airplanes or low-resolution satellite imagery that’s been repurposed for the task. The former is expensive, limiting how frequently it ...