Fires and smoke across Southern Mexico

A thick haze of smoke covers southern Mexico and Central America in this true-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the Aqua satellite on April 30, 2003. Although fire is commonly used in agriculture to clear land for planting crops, such fires can easily get out of control and grow into wildfires. In Nicaragua (bottom right corner), forest fires have been raging for the past three months, and have destroyed crops, tree plantations, and forests. The fires in this image are marked in red. They are spread across southern Mexico (top), then in Guatemala (south of Mexico), Honduras (to the east) and El Salvador (to the south), and Nicaragua. Smoke is spreading out over the Gulf of Mexico (top) and the Caribbean Sea (right).

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Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team,NASA/GSFC

Published May 1, 2003
Data acquired April 30 - 30, 2003

Source:

Aqua > MODIS

Topic:

Human Dimensions > Natural Hazards > Fires

Collection:

MODIS Rapid Response