Fires Rage Across South America

A NASA satellite image of South America illustrates the vast amount of land that is now burning, largely due to people burning forest and farmland -- either deliberately to get rid of farm waste or to clear new land, or accidentally after those fires have leaped out of control.

The fires, marked in red, are accompanied by huge plumes of smoke that drift across most of Bolivia, stopping only where blocked by the Andes Mountains, at left.

The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on Sept. 25. It shows the most intense area of fire activity, in Bolivia, where hundreds of fires are burning. The area of most intense fire activity has shifted since earlier in the month, when Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina represented ground zero for South American wildfires. To see an image from that period of time, click here.

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