Extremely dry soil, combined with periodic episodes of strong winds, unseasonable warmth, and very low relative humidity have lead to the high risk of wild-fires across portions of the Southern Plains from late December 2005 through mid March 2006.  Very large fires in the Texas Panhandle ignited on 12 March 2006, causing loss of property and life.  This web site presents 1) maps of fire locations estimated from GOES satellite imagery, and 2) high resolution animations of visible and 3.9 micron imagery during the afternoon of 12 March. 

In addition, strong southwesterly surface winds behind a dryline on 30 March 2006 (two weeks after the fires) appear to have transported surface debris from the fire scars in the form of dust or ash plumes into Oklahoma.  These plumes appear to be darker than dust plumes normally observed in west Texas.  Clouds appeared to form within the plumes just west of the dryline in Oklahoma and these clouds may have had a subsequent influence on the organization of ongoing storms to the east, see Movie 3 (from Scott Bachmeier, CIMSS).

These dust plumes do not appear detectable in the WSR-88D reflectivity data from nearby radars.  However, a new fire in northwest Oklahoma on the afternoon of 30 March was detected on the 3.9 micron GOES data. Although a smoke plume from this fire was not apparent in the GOES visible imagery, the plume was evident from radar reflectivity data observed from Vance Air Force Base in northcentral Oklahoma. These data are presented in Table 1. Of interest is the apparent entrainment of this plume into a developing line of thunderstorms over southcentral Kansas along a confluent zone (likely associated with the dryline).