In Russia’s Far East, numerous fires were billowing thick smoke on October 19, 2005, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the region. Active fires are marked in red. Many of the fires are burning in the Amur River valley, the low-lying area to the west of the forest-covered coastal mountains. Smoke spreads eastward over the Sea of Okhotsk (image right).
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.