October 16, 2014 - Fires in northeast China

Fires in northeast China

On October 13, 2014 the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flew over northeastern China and captured this true-color image of fires dotting the landscape. Each red hotspot marks areas where the thermal sensors on the instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical smoke plumes, such hotspots are diagnostic for actively burning fires.

Most of the land in this image belongs to China, with a black borderline marking where China and Russia meet. Russia curls along the coast of the Sea of Japan to Lake Kahnka (Lake Xingkai). The tan lands west of the mountain are a rich agricultural region.

Given the time of year, the location and the number of scattered fires, these are most likely agricultural fires. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil, to open new land for planting, to clear stubble of old crops from fields and to renew pasturelands.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/13/2014
Resolutions: 1km ( B), 500m ( B), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC