Images
December 11, 2021 - Fires in South Sudan
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Many dozens of fires speckled the countryside of South Sudan in mid-December 2021. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image on December 9.
Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical smoke, such as in this image, such hot spots mark actively burning fire. The fires burn in agricultural land and forest to the east and west of the Sudd area on the east and west of the White Nile. The Sudd (or Al-Sudd) is a large area of swampy lowlands that stretches about 200 miles (320 km) wide and 250 miles (400 km) long in central South Sudan.
Although it’s not possible to know the cause of any fire based on satellite imagery, given the time of year, location, and large number of the fires, the fires in this image are mostly likely agricultural. The use of fire as a land-management tool is part of traditional practices across the world. Fire can be used to clear old crops to prepare for the next planting season, renew pasture, return nutrients to the soil or open new land for use.
While fire is an inexpensive and useful agricultural tool with many benefits, widespread open burning also has significant negative impacts on weather, climate, human and animal health, and natural resources. Slash-and-burn clearing of forests and grasslands is the leading cause of deforestation. Recent studies have explored the impact of living down-wind of open agricultural fire on people, including one that found late-pregnancy smoke exposure decreases birthweight, gestational length, and in-utero survival. Another paper, published in 2019 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, correlates living downwind of agricultural fires to a decrease in cognitive performance on standardized tests, when compared to those living upwind.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/8/2021
Resolutions:
1km (40.7 KB), 500m (132.9 KB), 250m (453.6 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Many dozens of fires speckled the countryside of South Sudan in mid-December 2021. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image on December 9.
Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical smoke, such as in this image, such hot spots mark actively burning fire. The fires burn in agricultural land and forest to the east and west of the Sudd area on the east and west of the White Nile. The Sudd (or Al-Sudd) is a large area of swampy lowlands that stretches about 200 miles (320 km) wide and 250 miles (400 km) long in central South Sudan.
Although it’s not possible to know the cause of any fire based on satellite imagery, given the time of year, location, and large number of the fires, the fires in this image are mostly likely agricultural. The use of fire as a land-management tool is part of traditional practices across the world. Fire can be used to clear old crops to prepare for the next planting season, renew pasture, return nutrients to the soil or open new land for use.
While fire is an inexpensive and useful agricultural tool with many benefits, widespread open burning also has significant negative impacts on weather, climate, human and animal health, and natural resources. Slash-and-burn clearing of forests and grasslands is the leading cause of deforestation. Recent studies have explored the impact of living down-wind of open agricultural fire on people, including one that found late-pregnancy smoke exposure decreases birthweight, gestational length, and in-utero survival. Another paper, published in 2019 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, correlates living downwind of agricultural fires to a decrease in cognitive performance on standardized tests, when compared to those living upwind.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/8/2021
Resolutions:
1km (40.7 KB), 500m (132.9 KB), 250m (453.6 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
