Wheat Fires in China

In mid-June, agricultural fires and industrial pollution combined to leave a thick pall of haze over central China. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these true-color (top) and false-color (bottom) images of the fires and haze. Both images were acquired at 10:55 a.m. local time (02:55 UTC) on June 13, 2012.

Smoke and actively burning fires (shown with red outlines) are visible in the true-color image, as well as a large burn scar. The false-color image reveals details of the burn scar that aren’t readily apparent in the true-color view. Although the burn scar looks uniform, the false-color view indicates that numerous fields with unburned vegetation (shown as green) are scattered throughout the area. The cities of Bozhou, Huaibei, and Suzhou, which appear as gray patches, were the closest cities to actively-burning fires when Terra acquired the images.

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Earth Observatory, June 2012