• Credit:

  Image courtesy the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

On March 18, 2003, fires in southern Mexico, concentrated heavily on the Yucatan Peninsula (left of image center), produced large amounts of smoke that drifted out over the Gulf of Mexico to the north and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Streamers of smoke can be seen trailing across the Yucatan Channel toward Cuba and northeastward to the southern tip of Florida at the top of the image. In the central part of the Peninsula, a large outbreak of fires is burning in northern Guatemala, and to the west individual plumes from fires burning in the Sierra Madre Mountains in the Mexican state of Chiapas. In the high-resolution image, the small plumes from additional fires can be seen all throughout Central America. This image was acquired by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) on March 18, 2003.

Images & Animations

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• Database Updated: May 6, 2013