CLINTON, B.C. — A high-altitude research aircraft from NASA flew over British Columbia’s wildfires over the weekend in a bid to better understand weather events generated by large blazes.Online aviation tracking shows the ER-2 plane flew back and forth over B.C.’s southern Interior more than a dozen times on Saturday on a flight of more than six hours that took off from Great Falls, Mont.Data from the Flightradar24 website shows the plane spent about four hours at an altitude of 60,000 feet over the Clinton area, where the massive Pear Lake wildfire has been burning, It also swung east over Lake Revelstoke before returning to U.S. airspace.NASA says on its website that the ER-2 is researching pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which it describes as “one of the least understood forms of severe weather on Earth.”The BC Wildfire Service says the Pear Lake wildfire, the largest in B.C. at almost 1,500 square kilometres, has created such clouds that are formed by extreme smoke and heat and can in turn generate rain, lightning and fire tornadoes.The ER-2 is a repurposed Cold War spy plane known as the U-2, that has set records for extreme altitude flights up to twice as high as the typical altitude of commercial flights.NASA says the aircraft is fitted with “state-of-the-art infrared wildfire trackers” to register data on pyrocumulonimbus clouds.“Smoky and crackling with lightning, these unique storms can create blind spots for aviators above and spark new blazes below,” NASA says in a news release.“Measuring and mapping the dangerous storms as they develop in real-time will help scientists forecast them in the future.”This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2026.The Canadian Press
Archived URL: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wildfires/article/nasa-aircraft-flies-high-over-bc-wildfires-to-study-pyrocumulonimbus-clouds/
�� CONTENT HASHES:
SHA-256: ae175217b33457c97e70e0311774c38a0f2e3ceb1b0edb007ab74a11dd598c56
BLAKE2b: 2c0654c20db4324622bc308024f328f9fd9d292a06a478233c02be6611d7c48a
MD5: bd681ba2e89966bc324ff1063a6823f8
�� TITLE HASHES:
SHA-256: 3a8f14bbb0577f96edb47e1831d5f2a13dc889a312a2f640acf5578d14e4cc7f
BLAKE2b: 21745005395425a73cddd8a32e44353571c2ab87da292b5e9e37ef74aec5f676
MD5: a71068d4860b3b2c3f8ab7ef33919737
�� INTEGRITY HASHES:
SHA-256: 6d5d8873e0fe78b0706ffc30fd723058938726adcabf6c4596a5f9fd2d27390c
BLAKE2b: c2bc17d4ff22e3bec47c395b47c7b0c3fc16180378e3ceff688f79a6908b5aa9
MD5: 199a558a7c2b88fb96fe0c3efa2b6e4f
Archived with ArcHive - Client-side cryptographic archival system