Dozens of fires were scattered across central and southern Cape York Peninsula in northeastern Australia on December 14, 2005. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the region, the sensor detected actively burning areas (marked in red) across a broad region. Winds were pushing smoke plumes toward the west at the time of the image. Natural resource managers in northern Australia use fire to help maintain native grassland and control exotic species. Many of the fires in this image may be land-management fires set by public or private land managers.
The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center
