Smoke from West Coast wildfires stretches 2,000 miles across US, satellite photo shows

A satellite photo taken Saturday shows a pall of smoke from wildfires ravaging the West Coast stretching across the United States as far as Michigan.

That’s a distance of nearly 2,000 miles.

The National Weather Service weather prediction center posted the photo Saturday to Twitter. It shows dense smoke covering the Pacific Northwest and California, with a lighter band of smoke in the upper atmosphere stretching across the Midwest.

In California, more than 7,700 wildfires have blackened more than 3.1 million acres, killing 20 people, according to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In Oregon, more than a dozen large wildfires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres and killed at least 10 people, ABC News reported. Tens of thousands remain under evacuation orders..

Numerous wildfires also are burning in Washington, Idaho and Colorado.

This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 7:22 AM with the headline "Smoke from West Coast wildfires stretches 2,000 miles across US, satellite photo shows."