NASA predicts forest fires will be worse by the end of the century

As in Brazil during the summer, burning in the United States also threatens the country with rapidly spreading fires, consuming forests and even homes thousands of miles across the country.

To observe these phenomena, NASA is using its two satellites, Terra and Aqua, to help monitor forest fires directly from space and find out how much worse the situation could get. With data collected, the space agency has just released images and videos, showing a projection of what may be the unimportant evolution of fires in the coming decades.

Location and climate change

Each summer, the fires are growing and reaching more people. And this is not only due to the weather or criminal acts. For one thing, more Americans are building houses in fire-susceptible areas. On the other hand, due to climate change, a specific pine beetle begins to act, turning live leaves into parched and stacked plants, leaving the perfect field for fire to act.

In addition, there is the growing general dryness of land. NASA describes this concept as "potential evaporation, " a way of measuring how dry the earth will be one day. Using satellite data dating back to 1980, they created a new projection for potential evaporation in America over the next 90 years. There are two videos, one just from the projection (above) and one longer with some explanations (below).