Fires in Thailand

Fires in Thailand

23 March 2007

Fires in Thailand

On 22 March 2007, the Moderate Resolution ImagingSpectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of Thailand showing a cluster of fires (marked inred).

Numerous fires were burning in Thailand since the beginning ofMarch, leading to a precarious situation in the country and its surroundings.Since early this month forestry officials have detected around 4,300 ‘hot spots’in the North, and around 1,800 of them were in protected forest land. Hot spotsare areas with high ground temperatures detected by a heat-sensitive satellite,mostly forest fires.

AQUA
22 March 2007

Haze mainly stems from burning on farms for agriculturalpurposes, and burning of waste by householders. But according to agriculturaland environmental experts, the haze does not result from any particular causes.In fact, experts say that it has more to do with unusual weather patterns whichhave occurred in the northern region for some time since late last year.

An improvement in the situation has been reported today andgovernment of Thailand considers whether to take Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and MaeHong Son provinces off the list of disaster zones.

The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of250 meters per pixel.

(source: MODIS)

Thecurrent situation in Thailand is covered by a number of detailed reports (seeGFMC Media web page):

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