English: In late March 2023, smoke-filled fires were burning across the Southeastern United States, especially in western North Carolina. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image centered on the border of Tennessee (west) and North Carolina (east) on March 30. At least 5 fires, each marked with a red “hot spot” can be seen in the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina along with one in the Piedmont region further east in that state. In addition, 3 fires are burning in Tennessee, two in South Carolina (south of North Carolina) and one in Virginia, and a large fire with abundant smoke can be seen in Kentucky.

Springtime is the start of fire season in the Southeastern United States, as vegetation tends to be dry, temperatures on the rise, humidity still low, and spring showers often are accompanied by strong, gusty winds. It is also the time when fires are set to manage land, either for agriculture (croplands and pasture) or wildland (forest, wildlife habitat) management. The fires in this image are likely a mix of wildfire and managed fires.

According to Inciweb, there were no large active fires in this region on March 30. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) Incident Management Situation Report for March 31 lists only two large fires in North Carolina, and both of those were in the Coastal region of the state. On the other hand, the U.S. Forest Service announced prescribed burns in the Pisgah National Forest from March 29-30. The Pisgah National Forest extends over more than 500,000 acres of hardwood forest in the mountains of western North Carolina. Several of the hot spots seen in the image appear to be part of this prescribed burn. The large fire in Kentucky is undoubtedly a prescribed burn which was occurring in Daniel Boone National Forest in late March.

Widespread brush fires have also been reported in this region, especially in western North Carolina after a strong storm system brought roaring winds and hazardous weather on March 31-April 1. Local news reported that the North Carolina Forest Service responded to 91 wildfires across North Carolina on April 1 as high winds led to many downed or damaged powerlines, which provided ignition sources for several of the fires.