In western Iceland in late March 2006, a large fire broke out in the grasses of a wetland area, which had been dried out by a period of persistent north winds. According to local reports, some farmers in the area had to evacuate their livestock to protect them from the fast-moving, wind-driven blaze. The fire took four days to control, and it burned somewhere around 67 square kilometers, the largest fire recorded since the island was settled in the 9th century.
In this image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on March 30, 2006, a long plume of smoke blows westward away from the fire, whose location is marked in red in the image.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.
