Both prescribed fires and bushfires dot the landscape in this Aqua satellite image of Western Australia. A prescribed fires are fires that are deliberately set by fire professionals to try to get rid of dead grasses, brush, and other fire fuels that could allow bushifres to grow out of control and threaten wildlife, structures and human life. Some of the red spots are actual bushfires that are ongoing. This natural-color satellite image of western Australia was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on April 04, 2017. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner