File:Crying Fire, Montana (MODIS 2017-08-02).jpg

English: A lightning strike in summer-dried grasslands ignited the Crying Fire in Montana on July 19, 2017. By the time firefighters deemed it 100% contained on July 27, the blaze had consumed 7,295 acres of grass, sage, and timber on private, state, Bureau of Land Management, and Charles M. Russel National Wildlife Refuge lands about 50 miles north of Winnett, Montana. Two outbuildings were lost but no accident or injuries occurred. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite collected this true-color image on July 21. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Gray smoke rises from the hotspots and blows generally eastward, although as the smoke crosses the plains changing winds turn the major plume more southerly. Many of the hotspots sit on the edge of blackened areas. These areas are places where the vegetation has been burnt, leaving a charred appearance visible from space. They are known as “burn scars”.