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(reporter) This year's wildfires season is off to a blazing start, NASA is 

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tracking wildfires across the globe, and here to tell us more about it 

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live from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is Doctor 

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Lesley Ott. Thank you for joining us. (Dr. Ott) Thank you for having me.

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Wildfires have been ranging in parts of the U.S. this year. Can you show us this view from space?

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(Dr. Ott) One of the unique things about our satellites is that they give us a really detailed 

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view of fires as their happening. So, right now we are going to take a look at few recent 

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fires that you probably heard about. This is the Fort McMurray fire that happen in Canada back

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in May and we are transitioning to two fires that are going on right now

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California, the fire near L.A. and the fire in Monterey which is still 

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raging on. So, Satellites gives us a really unique perspective on fires

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by tracking a number of different aspects. We can see the hotspot while the fire is going on

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we can see the smoke that's pouring off. And then after the fire is completed, we can actually

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we get the look at the burn scar. see the impact on vegetation and even the vegetation

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regrowth in years to come. So it's a really unique vantage point we have from

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space. (reporter) It's been an active year around the world for wildfires

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How do fires on the other side of the world affect us?

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(Dr. Ott) You know we are very conscious of fires that happen in our own backyard or

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in the U.S. and Canada. But most of the fires that we see in the world actually 

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happen in places that far away. Satellites are giving us the best

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view that we have ever had of the global picture of fires.

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So, here you are seeing some of those fires accounts. You can see most of the fires are

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happening in places like Africa, South America, or Indonesia 

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Even though in impacts on vegetation are local, the impacts on air quality 

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can be more of a regional or global concern.

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We are looking right now at computer simulation of smoke aerosols in green and you can see

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that those smoke particles can travel all the way from Africa to South America.

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and vice versa. So really an important thing to track 

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over a long distances to make sure we can understand how fires can affect air

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quality in distant places. So we can good information to people so they can take care of 

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themselves. (reporter) El-Nino has dried out the Amazon this year

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making it vulnerable to wild fires, what impacts could this have on the summer Olympics?

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(Dr. Ott) Yeah that's a really interesting story we are following right now. So, NASA is

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part of an international cooperation of coronation 

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satellites to track rainfall. This is really exciting, because this best picture we ever

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had of global rainfall. Using that, which is what you are seeing right now. you

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can track rainfall patterns. We can see that those have shifted with El-Nino. We can see

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that Brazil, the northern part is dryer that it typically is. And 

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using another satellite called GRACE, we can actually track what the impact of those

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rainfall changes are below the ground. And you can see the red area showing us

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really, really, dry conditions in northern part of Brazil. So that area is primed

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to burn. If we do have fires in that area then depending on the winds

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speed some of that smoke can be transported to into Rio

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potentially affecting air quality for the Olympic participants and 

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all of the fans. So it's something we are watching very closely and a number of scientists

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around the world as well. (reporter) NASA is doing groundbreaking

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research around the world to study wildfires what are we learning?

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(Dr. Ott) That is a really good question. We talked a lot about the satellite picture.

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but we are also using a number of different resources

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from planes to ground research. To really fill out the picture 

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and make sure how fires are affecting us on the ground and in our daily lives.

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you are seeing a snap shot of footage from a plane. This is actually a student

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research of fire impacts in California. Then we are seeing people 

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on the ground in Alaska. This a field campaign that is on going called ABOVE

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were people are looking at the impacts of fires on vegetation

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so we can actually see in much more detail and complement the broad

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view we get from the satellite with some of these plane and ground study.

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(reporter) And where can we go to learn more? (Dr. Ott) You can check us out

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on the web at nasa.gov/fires or on Twitter @NASAEarth