Smoke from controlled burn drifting over Galveston County
9:57 pm, Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Plumes of smoke will be waning over Galveston County throughout the evening Wednesday, remnant of a controlled burn for research..
At the La Marque facility, NASA researchers, scientists, meteorologists and emergency management officials conducted a joint study measuring fire's atmospheric conditions to study the affects of wildfires on tallgrass prairie.
The controlled fire began at 2:30 p.m. and lasted about two hours, said David Popoff, Galveston County emergency management coordinator.
"The researchers from all over the country were able to get the data they needed," said Popoff. "Hopefully what they did today will help us to save lives of firefighters and civilians."
The drifting smoke will be especially visible to motorists along Interstate 45, Texas 6 and FM 2004. The smoke will die down throughout the evening.
Data collected from the Fire Flux II experiment will help researchers to better understand the behavior of wildfires, officials said. More than 155 acres of grasslands are expected to be burned during the operation.
Popoff said grass fires are the most dangerous type of open fires and the research developed will help emergency officials better calculate how wild fires moves to help study the proper time to advise people to evacuate.