Sixty-eight fires were affecting an estimated 94,107 hectares (232,543 acres) in Canada’s Yukon Territory on July 30, 2009, according to the daily situation report from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Several large blazes were pouring out thick smoke plumes when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this natural-color image. Places where MODIS detected active fire are outlined in red. This image is cropped (at left) along the border with Alaska (visible in large image), where even smokier fires are burning. The smoke from these fires and others in Russia’s Far East are veiling the entire Arctic with haze.
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NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
