February 26, 2015 - Snow and fires in northcentral Europe

Snow and fires in northcentral Europe

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on February 17, 2015 of multiple hot spots scattered throughout the Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia landscape.

Each hot spot, which appears as a red mark, is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for actively burning fire. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials. All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter or soot.

Surrounding these hotspots are large expanses of snow which cover parts of Poland (south of Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus (to the west), Lithuania (north), and Latvia, which lies north of Lithuania. A large bank of marine stratocumulus clouds lies over the Baltic Sea.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 2/17/2015
Resolutions: 1km (853.3 KB), 500m (3 MB), 250m (7.3 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC