Images
March 9, 2011 - Fires in Indochina
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Fires continued to burn across Indochina on March 8, 2011, covering the region in smoke and haze. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on that same day.
In the north, the Brahmaputra River Valley is veiled in a gray pall, which hangs over the river as it flows through India and Bangladesh. Along with the smoke from the many fires in the region, urban air pollution is a major problem in this valley, and almost certainly contributes to the pallor over the valley. River sediment carried by the Brahmaputra and Ganges spills into the Bay of Bengal, coloring the Bay a muddy tan.
Clusters of red hotspots, which mark active fires, speckle the mountains of India, Myanmar and Thailand and also dot the Shan Plateau of eastern Myanmar. Several large dense gray smoke plumes rise from hotspots in the northern and western mountains, and blow generally eastward.
Most of the fires are located in green areas and on the edges of cropland, indicating the fires are agricultural in nature, and were probably set to manage farming land and pasture. In Southeast Asia, the agricultural burning season runs from mid to late January through April or early May.
Even fires that have been deliberately set can sometimes get out of control. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), up to 56 million hectares of land are destroyed by wildfires each year in Asia. Anthropogenic impacts of increased population growth and higher demand for new agricultural areas aggravates the risk of extended wildfire situations.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 3/08/2011
Resolutions:
1km ( B), 500m ( B), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Fires continued to burn across Indochina on March 8, 2011, covering the region in smoke and haze. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on that same day.
In the north, the Brahmaputra River Valley is veiled in a gray pall, which hangs over the river as it flows through India and Bangladesh. Along with the smoke from the many fires in the region, urban air pollution is a major problem in this valley, and almost certainly contributes to the pallor over the valley. River sediment carried by the Brahmaputra and Ganges spills into the Bay of Bengal, coloring the Bay a muddy tan.
Clusters of red hotspots, which mark active fires, speckle the mountains of India, Myanmar and Thailand and also dot the Shan Plateau of eastern Myanmar. Several large dense gray smoke plumes rise from hotspots in the northern and western mountains, and blow generally eastward.
Most of the fires are located in green areas and on the edges of cropland, indicating the fires are agricultural in nature, and were probably set to manage farming land and pasture. In Southeast Asia, the agricultural burning season runs from mid to late January through April or early May.
Even fires that have been deliberately set can sometimes get out of control. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), up to 56 million hectares of land are destroyed by wildfires each year in Asia. Anthropogenic impacts of increased population growth and higher demand for new agricultural areas aggravates the risk of extended wildfire situations.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 3/08/2011
Resolutions:
1km ( B), 500m ( B), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
