July 6, 2004JPEG
On July 7, 2004, fires (marked in yellow) continued to burn around the headwaters of the Xingu River (center) in Mato Grosso, Brazil, at the southern margin of the Amazon rainforest.
Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC
In South America’s Amazon River Basin, the annual dry season is drawing to a close, but fires are still burning over a wide area near the Xingu National Park on September 28 and 29, 2004.
New maps of understory forest fires in the southern Amazon suggest there’s little connection between deforestation and understory fires. Some indigenous reserves where deforestation is minimal still have frequent understory fires.