Fires and smoke in central South America

The air over Brazil and Bolivia was hazy with the smoke from scores of fires burning along the edge of the Amazon rain forest on August 13, 2005. The fires, marked with red dots, tend to be in tan areas where the forest has previously been cleared, though in some cases, the fires are on the edge of such areas where it appears that more forest is being cleared. The pattern left by deforestation ranges from a herring bone shape that forms around a logging road to broad rectangular swaths of tree-free land. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on August 13, 2005.

Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Published August 16, 2005
Data acquired August 13, 2005

Source:

Terra > MODIS