Clouds over the December 16-17 weekend may have kept temperatures down a bit, but they apparently did little to quench dozens of large fires raging in the Barry Mountains of Victoria, Australia. This image of the area was captured on December 18, 2006, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are outlined in red. Thick smoke billows eastward from the fires across Victoria and New South Wales. Fires burned throughout the state during December.
The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. An image from the previous satellite overpass was stitched to the east (right) edge to show the extent of the smoke over the Tasman Sea. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of the region in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that highlights burned areas and openly flaming fire fronts.
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NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center
