Agricultural Fires adding to SAL?
Posted by JAC on 7/27/2009, 7:31 am



Satellite:  Aqua 

Date Acquired:  07/20/2009

Resolutions: 1km (1.4 MB)
500m (4.7 MB)
250m (11.7 MB) 

Bands Used:  1,4,3

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team,
NASA GSFC 



Thousands of fires were burning in Central Africa on July 20, 2009 when the MODIS on the Aqua satellite captured this image. Each fire is marked with a red dot - in some regions there are so many fires that it is hard to distinguish individual red dots on this lower resolution image! The majority of these fires, towards the center of the image, are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Widespread agricultural burning is common in the dry season in Africa. As the rainy season migrates north and south across the continent each year, a wave of widespread fires precedes its arrival. Although many of the fires that occur each year during Africaâ€s dry season occur in landscapes where people have been living and farming for generations, the growing population is also using fire to clear new agricultural land out of Africaâ€s tropical forests. Many of the fires in the image have only small smoke plumes, and some appear to be making no smoke. Dry grass or crop residue would generate less smoke than live or recently cut trees. The large amount of smoke coming from the fires along the margins of the forests, however, may indicate that forest is being cleared.

The long lake at image right is Lake Tanganyika - this lake is the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. It sits on the border of four different countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia.
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More Surface Lows developing off CV - JAC, 7/27/2009, 7:25 am
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