Hercules Drill Rig Fire on Satellite Image Today (Barely)
Underwhelming, but we think we see the plume of smoke from the burning Hercules 265 drill rig on today’s MODIS / Terra satellite image, taken at about 12:05 pm local time. Clouds and heavy haze over much of the area today. Winds were directly out of the west, so the small white patch on the east side of the rig location could be smoke rather than cloud (see detail below):
Times-Picayune reports today (July 25) the Hercules fire is much smaller, and the uncontrolled flow of natural gas has stopped, suggesting that the runaway well has "bridged over" (choked itself up with debris and rock eroded from the inside of the wellbore) – http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2013/07/gulf_of_mexico_natural_gas_wel_1.html