Wildfires

Wildfires in South East Asia

The Asian monsoon dominates the climate of Southeast Asia. From roughly mid-April to September, it is rainy and hot; from November to mid-March, it is cooler and dry. Late in the dry season, fires become widespread (both intentional and accidental) as people use burning to clear and maintain agricultural and residential landscapes.

This image of fires burning throughout Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand was acquired on March 22, 2013, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. MODIS detects fires not from visible smoke plumes, but from thermal infrared energy radiating from the land surface. The heat is invisible in images like this, but the locations where MODIS detected fires are labeled with red dots.