image: The widespread burning of lowland forests on Borneo as well as southern Sumatra, as seen in this image taken by the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite, is an annual, manmade occurrence. People use fires to manage agricultural lands which in this part of the world includes large palm tree plantations. Sometimes these fires burn out of control. In additon, there are other fires that started accidentally during activities like logging and also quickly get out of control. Another method of wildfires comes from lightning strikes in dry, hot areas. view more
Credit: NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on Sept. 22, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner