Though the landscape around the valley of the Amur River (Russia)/Heilong Jiang (China) looked more like winter than spring when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on March 8, 2008, it appeared that farmers in Russia were already thinking ahead to the upcoming growing season. The fires (outlines marked in red) are probably agricultural fires that growers set to clear crop residue or brush. The winter-barren land in the river valley is tan, but burned areas are deep brown. The surrounding forests are deep green and mingled with patches of snow.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
