Large fires were burning in the forests of Siberia between the Amur River (known as Heilong Jiang in China) and the Bureya River on May 24, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. Places where the sensor detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Dark brownish-purple patches on the landscape are burn scars from previous fires. Thick smoke in the eastern part of the image may be from these fires as well as fires farther west, south of Lake Baikal. Both accidental and natural forest fires are common in spring and summer in Russia.
The large image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides a georeferenced version of this image for use in Google Earth.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
