Knowing the height of a smoke plume is critical for atmospheric scientists and meteorologists as they develop models to predict where smoke will blow, explained Michael Tosca, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In many parts of the world, fires can loft smoke 5 or more kilometers (3 miles) into the air, and occasionally as high as 10 kilometers. But Tosca has found that smoke from Indonesian fires often remains relatively low in the atmosphere—between the surface and 3 kilometers.