A swath of red across the countries near the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa demonstrates how widespread the practice of agricultural burning is across central Africa this time of year. The red dots mark the location of active fires detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on December 8, 2003. Countries shown are (clockwise from top left) Burkina, Niger, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast. The brown-colored patches that are clustered around the intersection of northern Benin, Niger, and Burkina are a collection of parks and preserves, which have likely preserved the natural savanna vegetation, while the land surrounding the parks has been transformed by agriculture. This image is centered southeast of previous images in this series.
The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional spatial resolutions, including MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters.
Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
