Fires in South Eastern Africa

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Saturday, 4 August 2007, 05:42 CDT Download full size image

Scores of fires were burning all around Lake Malawi on July 28, 2007. Each red dot on the image represents an active fire detected by the MODIS on the Aqua satellite. The fires are scattered across several countries, including (clockwise) Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia. (The black lines denote country borders.) Further south, there are fires pouring out heavy smoke in South Africa. You can read more about these fires on Earth Observatory.

African savanna fires are mostly caused by humans for agricultural activities such as clearing pasture or cropland or driving game. Although the fires are not necessarily immediately hazardous, the frequency and wide extent of the burning can have strong influence on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources.

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