These scattered large fires burning in Alaska may be the result of extreme lightning activity experienced from July 17 to the 19, 2002, when the region received 12,000 lightning strikes. The large river flowing from upper right to bottom left is the Yukon River. This image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 31, 2002.
Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA-GSFC
