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Fires continued burning in Brazil on August 22, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day. This shows part of the Mato Grosso region in north-central Brazil. Fires, marked by red outlines, send plumes of smoke primarily toward the west.
The high-resolution image, which has a resolution of 1 kilometer, shows a larger area of burning fires, including blazes in parts of Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Bolivia declared an emergency over fires burning out of control, according to news reports. Fire is perhaps the primary means of clearing land for agricultural in the Amazon, but such fires can quickly spread.
References & Resources
- BBC. (2010, August 19). Bolivia declares emergency over forest fires. Accessed August 24, 2010.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
