NASA MODIS Image of the Day: April 30, 2011 – Fires in central United States
Every spring an intentional grass burning takes place in Flint Hills, a large tall grass prairie region in east-central Kansas.
On Sunday, April 10, dozens of large fires were intentionally started by ranchers and farmers to provide fresh grass for cattle.
NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over the fires in east-central Kansas on April 12, 2011 at 18:55 UTC (2:55 p.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard captured this true color image. The fires are seen as red dots, many associated with billowing gray smoke. Central Nebraska’s Independent.com news noted that there were also a number of controlled burns that occurred in the tri-cities region of Grand Island, Hastings and Kearney, Nebraska (above) on April 13, 2011, and the Flint Hills region of Kansas (center of image) had more controlled burns on April 12. In this image, there are six states outlined by boundary marks. Active fires can be seen in each state, or on the border of the state. On the left side of the image, the states seen, from top to bottom are Nebraska, Iowa (with the most fire and smoke), and Oklahoma. On the right side, the states are Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas.
