NASA MODIS Image of the Day: April 28, 2011 – Smoke from Asian fires over Japan
Several smoky fires burned across Asia on April 13, 2011, sending a wide veil of haze across the Sea of Japan as well as the Japanese mainland.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on the same day.
In this image, China is the large fire-free country in the upper left corner. Russia lies to the northeast and North Korea is to the south of China on the extreme left edge of the image. South Korea borders North Korea in the south. The islands of Japan curve across the Pacific Ocean. Most of the fires, which are marked in red, lie within North Korea, with only a few in southeastern Russia and two red “hotspots” on Japan’s eastern shore. The abrupt end of the fires at the borders of North Korea suggest that they are likely deliberately set, probably for agricultural management. Fire is frequently used throughout the world to clear land for agriculture and for other purposes, but rules and traditions governing the use of fire vary from country to country. Clustered along the east coast of Asia, many of the fires were producing a thick smoke, blanketing the Sea of Japan with thick smoke. Although some of the smoke may be coming from eastern Russia, the densest plumes extend east from the Korean peninsula.
