NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 13, 2007 – Dust and Fires Across Central Africa
In northern Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, the landscape transitions into a sparse, semi-arid savanna known as the Sahel, and then into more humid savannas farther south. Across the region, extensive agricultural-related burning takes place each year for several months during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. People set thousands of fires to clear brush, burn off crop stubble, and renew pasture grasses.
This image from the MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite shows a view of northern Africa captured on January 8, 2007. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of active fires (marked in red) were detected by MODIS across a broad area. Aside from smoke, the area towards the top of this image, North of the Gulf of Guinea, the landscape is blurred by a dust cloud driven into the area in previous days from the Bodele Depression to the northeast.
People have been using fire to manage landscapes in Africa for thousands of years. While such burning is not necessarily immediately hazardous, it can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources.
