July 17, 2003
When summer arrives, it’s fire season in places other than the western United States. Lightning from summer thunderstorms triggers the majority of wildfires in Russia’s boreal forests, and these fires can burn the trees and the deep layers of peat soil on the forest floor, releasing huge clouds of smoke. This image of fires (red dots) in eastern Russia was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 17, 2003.
The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS? maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.
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Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
