The terrifying reason NASA is flying planes into raging wildfires

SpaceEnvironment
22 Jul 2026 • 1:34 PM MYT
The Independent
The Independent

The world’s most free-thinking newspaper

The terrifying reason NASA is flying planes into raging wildfires

  • NASA plans to conduct flight missions this summer to study dangerous wildfire-generated storms, aiming to improve forecasting and potentially save lives.
  • The agency will fly ER-2 and WB-57 planes into pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which are known to produce choking smoke, thousands of lightning strikes, and firenadoes.
  • The experiment, named "INSPYRE" and led by the Naval Research Laboratory, will involve at least two 6-8-week flight missions over the western U.S. or Canada.
  • These missions will utilize infrared wildfire trackers on planes and deploy ground-based radar and remote sensing technology to observe cloud formation.
  • The research is crucial as human-caused climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of wildfires, making current predictions for these complex cloud formations inadequate.

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