Agricultural and other land-management or trash-burning fires are widespread across West Africa in the dry season. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on March 17, 2009, shows scores of fires (locations marked in red) burning in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Although agricultural burning such as this is not necessarily immediately hazardous, it can have a major impact on air quality and human health, climate, and natural resources.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
