Agricultural fires are ablaze all over the island of Madagascar. These are not wildfires, but rather fires deliberately set to manage land by farmers. During the planting season farmers will set fire to clear the fields of leftover debris and return nutrients to the soil. This type of land clearing is called “slash and burn” agriculture. The problem with this method of clearing land is the fact that copious amounts of smoke are being released into the atmosphere. The smoke from all those fires rises and rides along the jet stream bringing pollution to all parts of the world. 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’s Suomi NPP satellite collected this natural-color image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument on November 12, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner