Smoke Blankets Oregon

NASA's Aqua satellite captured dozens of large wildfires smoldering across central and eastern Oregon, the haze pouring northeast in a thick blanket. NASA News reports the blazes were sparked by dry lightning storms over the Cascade Range on July fifteenth, then fed by gusty winds and severe drought. More than ten thousand firefighters are now battling the flames, with several of the largest fires, including the Hay Creek Complex and the Brewer fire, less than five percent contained. State officials have invoked Oregon's Emergency Conflagration Act, and as of July twenty-seventh, fires had burned more than one million acres in the state alone.

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