Fires Spread Smoke over Buenos Aires

Fires Spread Smoke over Buenos Aires

18 April 2008

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Smoke from fires set by farmers to clear land for livestock grazing in the floodplain of the Parana River northwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina, degraded local air quality and forced road closures due to poor visibility, according to news reports. This image of the fires (locations outlined in red) was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on 17 April 2008.

AQUA
17 April 2008

Click here to view high-resolution version (1.39 MB)

(source: earth observatory)

Smoke flows southeast over Buenos Aires and the muddy waters of the Rio de la Plata Estuary. According to a Bloomberg.com news article, Argentina’s Interior Minister, Florencio Randazzo, attributed the dramatic fire activity to farmers needing new pastures for cattle that previously grazed on land now dedicated to soybean production.

See also latest media report:

• Rural fires choke Buenos Aires with smoke (published by www.latimes.com, 18 April 2008)

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