While hundreds continue to battle the destructive Mosquito Fire in the Sierra, a smaller group of Bay Area scientists are trying to learn from it.
A team from the San Jose State Wildfire Center spent several days monitoring the inferno from the ground and air and their research may be key to keeping firefighters and communities safer in the future.
For several days, the team collected critical data via a mobile lab and a special imaging system attached to a NOAA aircraft, an approach scientists say is a game changer .
“For the first time we can look at the wind field around the fire, the plume dynamics using radar and the fire progression at high resolution and those three observations have never been located on any fire anywhere in the world,” said Dr. Craig Clements, director of the SJSU Wildfire Research Center.