Scattered clouds mingle with the smoke from scores of fires burning near the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil on November 13, 2004. The fires, most of which are probably agricultural fires people have set on purpose to clear forest or manage grazing and farmlands, have been marked with red dots. Through a break in the clouds in the left center of the image, the muddy Amazon is visible. Where the river empties into the Atlantic, it spills a large volume of sediment that colors the coastal water tan and blue-green.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the MODIS Rapid Response team.
