A fire burning at an industrial sulfur processing facility in northern Iraq at the junction of the Tigris (flowing in from North) and Great Zab (northeast) Rivers billowed white smoke over Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries beginning on June 25, 2003. The fire continued to burn for two weeks, spreading the sulfur-containing smoke over a wide area. According to local media reports, the smoke was responsible for crop damage and other environmental problems as well as respiratory distress among people in the area. This image of the white smoke hanging over the region was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on June 29, 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.
Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
