NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Fires and Smoke in Central Russia

Hundreds of fires continued to burn in central Russia in early July 2012, belching tremendous quantities of smoke across the region. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the smoke-laden skies on July 5.

In this image, most of the fires appear to be burning far north of Omsk and Novosibirsk, with other blazes speckling the green land across the entire image. Smoke pours to the southeast, and drifts into Kazakhstan. Here the smoke it so thick it completely obscures the ground.

The density of the smoke and the high number of fires in this region is remarkable, however, many other fires continue to blaze across Russia – far too many to be captured on one MODIS image.