Night space images show development

From Philadelphia, at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers

For many emergency-management officials, monitoring the rapid pace of development in fire-prone regions of the western United States is a daunting task. Now, scientists may have come up with a means to estimate population growth in these areas by using satellite images taken at night.

To assess the fire risk to people in a region, analysts need to determine where houses are being built and how close they are to each other.