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October 14, 2022 - Fires along the Parana River, Argentina
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Widespread fires continue to burn along the wetlands and floodplain of Argentina’s Parana River through mid-October 2022, pouring heavy smoke into the atmosphere. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of dozens of active fires, some of which appear quite large, along the thin course of the Parana River on October 13. Smoke from the fires is blowing primarily southeast and extend beyond the city of Buenos Aries, which can be seen as a large area of gray-brown pixels on the south side of the muddy Rio de la Plata.
Fires sprung up along the Parana River as early as February of this year, and by August local and international media published reports of severe damage to the wetlands near the city of Rosario. On August 22, Copernicus published an Image of the Day of the inferno. The caption explained that the blazes, which ignited following a prolonged period of drought and scarce rainfall, had burnt nearly 100,000 hectares of land just in the previous two weeks.
On August 17, the Buenos Aries Times quoted the Deputy Environment Minister as saying, “It is inevitable that setting fires in these adverse weather conditions, with a drought that has lasted four years and a strong drop in the Parana River, is criminal. Whoever sets fires in these conditions cannot be unaware of the context in which they are doing it.” Argentina had declared a water emergency on July 26, 2021, after extended poor rainfalls led to the river’s lowest water flow in 78 years. In May 2022, that emergency was extended due to continued lack of rainfall and low water levels. Light rain arrived in early October, but not nearly enough to assuage the critical situation—or douse the widespread fire activity.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/13/2022
Resolutions:
1km (37.6 KB), 500m (146.6 KB), 250m (507.1 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Widespread fires continue to burn along the wetlands and floodplain of Argentina’s Parana River through mid-October 2022, pouring heavy smoke into the atmosphere. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of dozens of active fires, some of which appear quite large, along the thin course of the Parana River on October 13. Smoke from the fires is blowing primarily southeast and extend beyond the city of Buenos Aries, which can be seen as a large area of gray-brown pixels on the south side of the muddy Rio de la Plata.
Fires sprung up along the Parana River as early as February of this year, and by August local and international media published reports of severe damage to the wetlands near the city of Rosario. On August 22, Copernicus published an Image of the Day of the inferno. The caption explained that the blazes, which ignited following a prolonged period of drought and scarce rainfall, had burnt nearly 100,000 hectares of land just in the previous two weeks.
On August 17, the Buenos Aries Times quoted the Deputy Environment Minister as saying, “It is inevitable that setting fires in these adverse weather conditions, with a drought that has lasted four years and a strong drop in the Parana River, is criminal. Whoever sets fires in these conditions cannot be unaware of the context in which they are doing it.” Argentina had declared a water emergency on July 26, 2021, after extended poor rainfalls led to the river’s lowest water flow in 78 years. In May 2022, that emergency was extended due to continued lack of rainfall and low water levels. Light rain arrived in early October, but not nearly enough to assuage the critical situation—or douse the widespread fire activity.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/13/2022
Resolutions:
1km (37.6 KB), 500m (146.6 KB), 250m (507.1 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
