LOS ANGELES (AP) - An unmanned NASA Predator aircraft equipped with an infrared imaging sensor has flown over large areas burned by California wildfires to help the Forest Service assess damage.
Operating from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, the Predator last week overflew the 250 square miles burned by the summer's Station Fire in Angeles National Forest and the 57-square-mile area scorched by the 2008 Piute Fire in Sequoia National Forest and other federal land in Kern County.
The aircraft carried a scanner with filters to detect light in visible, infrared and thermal wavelengths. NASA says the images were then superimposed over Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth maps before being made available to the Forest Service.
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