November 8, 2020 - Fires in Bolivia

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   Fires in Bolivia
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   Many dozens of fires burning in western Bolivia produced a shroud of
   smoke that, in many places, hid the landscape from satellite view in
   early November 2020. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
   the scene on November 5.

   Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the MODIS
   instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical
   smoke, as in this image, such hot spots mark actively burning fires.
   For orientation, the blue lake that sits on the western edge of the
   image is Lake Titicaca and is shared between Peru (west) and Bolivia.
   To the south, the large highly reflective area is Salar de Uyuni, the
   world’s largest salt flat. Both of these sit high in the Andes
   Mountains, where the air remains smoke-free and no fires are burning.
   To the east, patches of brown mark agricultural fields that are found
   in the lowlands. Protected forestland is colored deep green and hugs
   the base of the Andes as well as a large protected area south and east
   of the agricultural region.

   Many of these fires are clustered in agricultural land, which is not
   surprising as farmers in the region traditionally use small, controlled
   fires as a tool to maintain pastures, burn off spent crops, clear brush
   and forest, fertilize soils and burn trash. Many fires, however, appear
   in or at the edges of deep green forest, indicating that illegal
   clearing is occurring or that agricultural fires have slipped control
   and become destructive wildfires. The 2020 Bolivian fire season—like
   that in 2019—has been intense, with many wildfires burning across the
   country from July until the present time and frequently covering much
   of Bolivia with a pall of smoke. The fires have prompted the government
   to declare a state of emergency by early October. Rains have eased the
   wildfires that were burning in eastern Bolivia, but clearly many fires
   are still active. By some estimates, the wildfires are expected to
   continue into December.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 11/5/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (261.4 KB),  500m (897.9 KB),  250m (3.4 MB)
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2020-11-08
 
