September 20, 2004
Smoke from thousands of fires in South America near the border of Brazil and Bolivia blankets much of the continent in mid-September 2004. The abundance of smoke is an indication that forests are burning, and not just grasslands or existing agricultural land being prepared for a new growing season. Along the west coast of the continent, the Andes Mountains create a partial barrier to the spread of the smoke. The red dots in this image, which is a composite of observations captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites on September 20, 2004, are active fire detections.
References & Resources
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the MODIS Rapid Response team.
