A large forest fire broke out near the Israeli city of Haifa on December 2, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the fire at 12:10 p.m. local time. The fire, outlined in red, was producing thick smoke that blew northwest over Haifa.
Fueled by strong winds, the fire grew quickly. Terra MODIS did not detect a fire in the region when it flew over a little more than an hour and a half earlier (at 10:30 a.m. local time). According to CNN, at least 22 people had died in the forest fire, which had burned tens of square kilometers of forest. The cause of the fire is unknown.
Twice-daily images of the eastern Mediterranean region are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
