NASA MODIS Image of the Day: July 10, 2009 - Fires Stretch Across Central Africa

 
STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Friday, July 10, 2009
Source: NASA MODIS Web

As the rainy season migrates north and south across the continent each year, a wave of widespread fires precedes its arrival. This image from the MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite from July 8, 2009, shows thick smoke from hundreds of fires (locations marked in red) burning in central Africa, from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the western part of the scene to Tanzania in the east. The tan and dull green landscape of southern DRC, Zambia, and Tanzania is savanna or grassland, while the deep green landscape of interior DRC (upper left) is tropical forest. Many of the fires have only small smoke plumes, and some appear to be making no smoke. The amount of smoke a fire generates is influenced by many factors, including the amount (biomass) of vegetation that is burning and how wet it is. Dry grass and brush would generate less smoke than trees. The large amount of smoke coming from the fires in DRC at upper left may be a sign that forest is burning.