Fires and smoke across central South America

  • Credit

    Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Thick smoke pours from hundreds of fires burning across South America in this true-color image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on September 18, 2004. The fires have been burning for several weeks and are marked with red dots in this image. Though it’s unclear how these fires started, burning is a common method of clearing land for agriculture. The thickness of this smoke, however, suggests that forests, not existing fields, are burning. On the left, the smoke fills the valleys of the Andes Mountains, leaving the green tops of the range to peak through. Brazil forms the top and right side of the image. On the left are Bolivia, top, and Argentina, bottom. Paraguay is the only country shown in its entirety in the center of the image.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Aqua/MODIS

  • Visualization Date

    2004-09-23