Images
September 2, 2026 - Fires in Africa
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Dense gray smoke and pale clouds filled the skies over eastern Central Africa in late August 2026. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image on August 30.
Smoke was so thick on that day that much of the Democratic Republic of Congo (west) is obscured from view in this image. Meanwhile, scattered cloud mixed with smoke covered a portion of coastal Tanzania (north) and Mozambique (south). Between these two extremes, smoke drifted over Lake Tanganyika (north) and Lake Malawi (south) as well the portion of the lakeside countries of Burundi, Malawi, and Zambia captured in this image. Red “hot spots” stippled the entire landscape, each marking an actively burning fire.
The abundance of fires, time of year, and location of the fires all strongly suggest that the smoke and blazes are the result of agricultural burning. The use of fire in managing cropland and pasture is common in traditional societies and occurs across Central Africa at this time every year. Some uses of fire are to clear old crops off fields, to prepare fields for planting, to renew pasture, or remove forest or scrub to open new fields for use. Each individual fire presents a minimal hazard to air quality, but such widespread smoke can be hazardous to human and animal health. This type of practice, which is sometimes also called “slash-and-burn” agriculture, is a major cause of deforestation in many parts of the world.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 8/30/2026
Resolutions:
1km (511.8 KB), 500m (1.7 MB), 250m (5.2 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Dense gray smoke and pale clouds filled the skies over eastern Central Africa in late August 2026. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image on August 30.
Smoke was so thick on that day that much of the Democratic Republic of Congo (west) is obscured from view in this image. Meanwhile, scattered cloud mixed with smoke covered a portion of coastal Tanzania (north) and Mozambique (south). Between these two extremes, smoke drifted over Lake Tanganyika (north) and Lake Malawi (south) as well the portion of the lakeside countries of Burundi, Malawi, and Zambia captured in this image. Red “hot spots” stippled the entire landscape, each marking an actively burning fire.
The abundance of fires, time of year, and location of the fires all strongly suggest that the smoke and blazes are the result of agricultural burning. The use of fire in managing cropland and pasture is common in traditional societies and occurs across Central Africa at this time every year. Some uses of fire are to clear old crops off fields, to prepare fields for planting, to renew pasture, or remove forest or scrub to open new fields for use. Each individual fire presents a minimal hazard to air quality, but such widespread smoke can be hazardous to human and animal health. This type of practice, which is sometimes also called “slash-and-burn” agriculture, is a major cause of deforestation in many parts of the world.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 8/30/2026
Resolutions:
1km (511.8 KB), 500m (1.7 MB), 250m (5.2 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
