In late October 2019, fires broke out on the flanks of volcanoes on the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of the smoke plumes on October 21, 2019.
Although the fires are located near volcanoes, none have been associated with any recorded volcanic activity in that area. According to volcanologist Janine Krippner of the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, fires on the flanks of stratovolcanoes in Indonesia are not unusual. As of October 24, Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Authority reported several fires, some of which have been extinguished.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Caption by Kasha Patel.
