Fire Season in Northern Africa

Fire Season in Northern Africa

Thousands of fires were burning across the savannas of northern Africa south of the Sahara Desert in early December 2005. The region’s dry season lasts through the winter months and into early spring, and during that time people use fire to manage farm and range land. This image from December 5, 2005, shows widespread fire activity (active fire locations marked in red) detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The large image has a spatial resolution of approximately 1 kilometer per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides daily images of Africa at a variety of resolutions.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center