The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires burning in the Adana region of Turkey on September 05, 2015. This area of the country is mostly agricultural in nature with farmers growing wheat, cotton, and barley. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants.
While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials. All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter or soot and is hazardous to breathe.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner