NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 2, 2008 – Fires in Central Africa

Images

Thousands of fires (each marked by a red dot) are visible in this image captured by the MODIS on Aqua satellite on December 27, 2007.

This image shows central Africa – most of the fires are concentrated in the Central African Republic (right center), Cameroon (left center) and Chad (top center).

There are some fires south of the Central African Republic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The fires in this region, known as the sahel, are agricultural in nature. The sahel is a semi-arid strip of grassland in western and central Africa that runs between the Sahara desert to the north and the more fertile region to the south. You can see more fires in this region, just west of this image here.