Northern Africa Fire Season

Northern Africa Fire Season

13 December 2006

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On December 11, 2006, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured thisimage of scores of fires burning across the eastern part of North Africa’sSahel region (topmost part of the image) and the more humid savannas to thesouth. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fire are marked inred. 

AQUA
11 December  2006

Smoke spreads southwest, leaving a haze over southern Sudan, the Central AfricanRepublic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The widespread nature of thefires and the time of year indicates that most of them are being setintentionally for agricultural purposes. Though it is not necessarilyimmediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact onweather, climate, human health, and natural resources.

The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 500meters per pixel.

(source: EarthObservatory).

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