And wildfire plumes have soared up to 10 miles high, above the cruising altitude of commercial jets. By stitching these different elevation “slices” together, he was able to produce a three-dimensional model of each smoke plume. Wildfires and smoke plumes towering to new heightsThe Creek Fire, which has burned nearly 200,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada mountains, was only 6 percent contained on Friday. AD“Anecdotally, this is the deepest that I’ve seen,” said Lareau, who was shocked by the height achieved by the smoke plume. ADAD“We’ve been proposing for three or four years now to do major field campaigns targeting these extreme behaviors,” said Lareau.

Source: Washington Post September 12, 2020 15:33 UTC