Fires in Southeast Africa

Fires in Southeast Africa

25 September 2007

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As the dry season matures in southeastern Africa in late September, agricultural burning becomes more widespread across Tanzania and Mozambique. This image of the region was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on 23 September 2007. Places where MODIS detected active fires are marked in red.

AQUA
23 September 2007

In the savannas and grasslands of Africa, thousands of fires are set each dry season to clear brush from cropland and pasture, to move game, and to burn the stubble from already harvested fields. Although it is not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources.

The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel.

(source: EarthObservatory)

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