August 13, 2021 - Spectacular shroud of smoke over Russia

Fires

On August 11, 2021, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Russia shrouded in dense smoke.

The thickest smoke reaches from near the Mongolian border in the south to mingle with clouds over the Laptev Sea in the north. Most of the large and fierce wildfires responsible for this smoke are burning in Yakutia (also known as the Sakha Republic), which is hidden from view under a combination of dense smoke and white cloud. According to measurements taken from the NASA Worldview App, a conservative measurement of the triangular area between clouds yet mostly obscured from view by the extraordinarily dense smoke comes in at roughly 1,527,000 square kilometers (589,000 square miles). This is an area about twice the size of the U.S. state of Texas.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 8/11/2021
Resolutions: 1km (6.6 MB), 500m (24.5 MB), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC