Since mid-June 2004, dozens of wildfires, mostly triggered by lightning, have been burning across east-central Alaska in the Yukon Flats region. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite shows the fires and thick smoke on July 13. Areas where MODIS detected active fires are outlined in red.
Image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
In Alaska, the landscape is already changing over to its fall wardrobe, with summer’s green being traded for brown and gold. Fires, some of which have been burning since before the beginning of summer, were still smoldering on September 7, 2004.