NASA’s six-week INSPYRE campaign studied how intense wildfires create pyrocumulonimbus clouds—thunderstorm-like systems that can generate their own winds and send smoke high into the atmosphere. The campaign’s aircraft and ground teams collected observations in summer 2026; researchers are now combining those measurements with satellite data and models, so NASA has not yet announced final findings or a new forecasting method.
What is a pyrocumulonimbus cloud?
A pyrocumulonimbus cloud, often shortened to pyroCb, is a thunderstorm-like cloud generated by an intense fire. Heat and rising air lift smoke and cloud material upward. The resulting system can produce lightning, rain, downdrafts and shifting winds—in effect, fire-generated weather that may change conditions around an active blaze.
“A unique thing about pyrocumulonimbus is they are fire-generated weather, meaning the fire makes its own weather,” said Neil Lareau, a University of Nevada, Reno atmospheric scientist who led INSPYRE’s ground observations. As he put it, “The fire is making its own thunderstorm, and in the process of doing that, it’s also making its own wind.”
How high can wildfire smoke rise?
NASA says smoke in the largest pyroCbs can reach 30,000 to 50,000 feet (10 to 15 kilometers) above Earth, potentially entering the stratosphere. That range describes the largest events, not every pyroCb. Smoke injected that high can travel across continents or circle the globe and persist longer than smoke in the lower atmosphere.
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This reach makes pyroCbs relevant beyond the fire itself. At the fire line, lightning, downdrafts and wind shifts can complicate operations. Farther away, smoke particles and gases may affect atmospheric chemistry, radiation, weather and climate. NASA identifies these as issues the campaign is investigating, not quantified outcomes established by its report.
What did NASA’s INSPYRE campaign measure?
INSPYRE stands for INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment. It operated across western North America in summer 2026, combining aircraft observations with measurements from ground crews.
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| Platform | Role described by NASA |
|---|---|
| NCAR Gulfstream | Sampled smoke, gases, ice crystals and radiation from within or near fire-generated clouds and smoke plumes. |
| NASA ER-2 | Carried 14 instruments to measure fire and cloud properties from above. |
| Ground teams | Used sensor-equipped trucks to observe conditions near fires. |
The measurements addressed complementary parts of the problem, including smoke particles and gases, cloud ice, radiation, fire intensity and updraft speeds. The Gulfstream flew for six weeks from the NCAR research aviation facility near Boulder, Colorado. The ER-2 flew from Great Falls, Montana, with flights as far north as Alaska.
NASA says most numerical prediction models do not explicitly include pyroCbs and their smoke injections. A central scientific question is what drives a pyroCb’s development: fire energy, fire intensity, atmospheric conditions above the fire, or some combination. “We still do not understand if they’re driven by fire energetics, or fire intensity, or by atmospheric conditions above,” said Olga Kalashnikova, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher and INSPYRE principal investigator.
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What happened over Idaho’s Wildhorse grass fire?
On Aug. 26, 2026, the Gulfstream was returning from a fire farther west when the crew learned that the Wildhorse grass fire in eastern Idaho was unexpectedly intense. Spotter Sarah Woods saw the remains of a pyroCb from the aircraft. “It looks just like a big thunderstorm, and so as you approach it, you look for a visual indication of the fire on the ground,” she said.
After visually connecting the cloud to the fire below, the pilots turned around. The Gulfstream spent about three hours sampling the cloud plume and smoke trail, roughly an hour after the cloud erupted. NASA describes the encounter as a rare and useful opportunity; other coordinated flights also recorded active fire-driven airflow. The observation was opportunistic, rather than evidence that every campaign flight was aimed at the Wildhorse fire.
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“We knew there was a grass fire there, and everyone’s like, it’s just a grass fire; we’re not going to worry about it,” said Dave Peterson, Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist and INSPYRE co-principal investigator. “And it ended up being the main event.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can the campaign tell us—and what is still unknown?
NASA’s Oct. 2, 2026 report describes the campaign’s aims, methods and field encounter, but does not present final campaign-wide conclusions. Researchers planned to combine aircraft data with satellite and ground observations and compare the combined observations with models. The report does not give a total number of sampled fires or flights, a measured mass of smoke reaching the stratosphere, or a quantitative climate effect.
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One reason for studying the clouds is that their atmospheric effects may extend beyond what can be seen from the ground. “When clouds form, they modify chemistry,” Kalashnikova said. Determining how that happens, how much smoke reaches high altitudes and how well models can represent these events depends on analysis still underway.
NASA’s account of the campaign and its observations is available in its Oct. 2, 2026 report.
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