Black smoke billowed over the Libyan landscape on August 20, 2008, likely caused by a fire at an oil refinery. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image the same day. The fire appears as a hotspot, marked in red, where MODIS detected anomalously warm surface temperatures. The smoke fans away from this pinpoint source of heat. Besides the smoke, few other features stand out in this arid landscape.
A report in the Times of Malta.com described an oil refinery blaze that started at a refinery near Tripoli on August 19. By August 22, the fire was contained, according to the report.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
