Agricultural Fires in West Africa

Agricultural Fires in West Africa

12 January 2008

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In the grasslands and savannas of West Africa, the agricultural burning season takes place in Northern Hemisphere winter. Fires are widespread at this time, as people burn crop stubble, brush, and old pasture grasses. This image shows hundreds of fires (red dots) detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite when it captured this image on 10 January 2008. Although it is not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources.

AQUA
10 January 2008

The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 1 kilometer per pixel.

(source: earth observatory)

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