Southeast of Russia’s Lake Baikal, scores of large fires choked the skies of the southern part of the country with smoke. This image of the fires (locations outlined in red) was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on April 17, 2008. Early spring is not a common time for naturally occurring wildfires in Russia, so most of these fires are probably intentional agricultural fires or wildfires accidentally caused by people. Fires are also burning to the east of this area, north of the Amur River (visible in the large version of the image).
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
