Image credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response

The latest NASA photo of the Southern California wildfires, above, is nothing short of breathtaking ... and not in a good way.

The red pixels represent fire activity.

Worse yet, this photo was taken on Tuesday at 2:25 p.m. Eastern Time, well before fire officials began to speak of hope that changing weather conditions might bring some relief.

According to the space agency: "NASA satellites have obtained new images of the California wildfires, illustrating the immense scale of the blazes. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that 12 large, uncontained fires have burned over 335,000 acres in Southern California. The fires have continued to spread due to the fierce, dry Santa Ana winds."

Additional NASA images can be seen here.

There have been estimates that a million people have been evacuated.

Call it a small glimmer, if you will, but at least the "fire blogger" we interviewed yesterday has been able to return to his home.

I said it was a small glimmer.