Terra Satellite Sees Intense Fires And Smoke Over Western Russia

The MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite detected two clusters of intense fires when it acquired a photo-like image. The fires are outlined in red. Credit: NASA Goddard/MODIS Rapid Response Team, Jeff Schmaltz

by Holli Riebeek Washington DC (SPX) Aug 16, 2010 Though a plume of smoke still stretched across hundreds of kilometers, conditions in central Russia appeared to be much better on August 12, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite detected two clusters of intense fires when it acquired a photo-like image. The NASA image is a composite of three separate satellite images.
The MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created the composite image, and diagonal lines mark the seams between each image.
The first cluster of fires is southeast of Moscow.
Though the fires were producing thick smoke when MODIS captured the image on August 12, the smoke was blowing away from the city.
Moscow appeared to have relatively smoke-free skies compared to previous days.
The second cluster of fires is in the Ural Mountains.
The smoke from these fires extends south into Kazakhstan.
Apart from the thick plume of smoke that seems to connect the two fire regions, a lighter pall of smoke hangs over southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan.