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A Global Tour of Fire
Video description
Fire observations from around the world taken over nearly 10 years are shown in this visualization of NASA satellite data.
Video by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
Video transcript
Announcer: Some parts of the world burn every year. Australia is one of those places. The fires in central Australia are grassland fires that burn in largely unpopulated areas. The areas in the north are comprised of eucalyptus woodland and savanna fires.
Agricultural fires dominate Asia and Southeast Asia. Crop cultivation fires in China, Thailand, and the Punjab region of India can be seen here.
Catastrophic forest fires in Russia, where it takes a long time for the vegetation to recover, can also be seen.
Africa really is the fire continent. As healthy green vegetation dries, these areas are consumed by sweeping waves of fire that move from north to south and south to north each season. The fires in Africa are primarily grassland fires, but there are also management fires associated with agriculture and maintenance.
In South America you see pastoral maintenance fires in the Amazon Basin and fires that are used to clear the tropical rain forest for agriculture and grazing.
In the United States you can see fires in the southeast associated with forestry and agriculture. The recent fires in Texas and wildfires in the west are also seen.
