10 Years of Fires on Earth Seen From Space

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By Dave Mosher October 21, 2011 | 4:33 pm | Categories: Environment, Video


Using a pair of Earth-monitoring satellites, NASA has recorded tens of millions of fires that burned throughout the past decade.

NASA took the 10 years of data collected since 2002 and created animated visualizations (above). The videos show the ebbs and flows of Earth from space including its vegetation, snow cover, cloud cover, surface temperatures, oceans, fires and more.

The fire data show the United States was home to just 2 percent of the world’s fires. Africa, meanwhile, was the most fiery continent.


Africa contributed 70 percent of the world’s blazes over the years, including both natural and man-made conflagrations. (A very large cluster of agricultural- and lightning-sparked fires in African savanna lands, for example, can be seen from July through September 2006.)


more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/wildfires-space-nasa/

[Old and In the Way]

1. Correlation between per capita wealth and fire fighting effectiveness?

Obviously, Africa may be more susceptible to fires due to geographic conditions...but does our ability to effectively fight fires minimize the extent of damage?

[n2doc]

2. A lot of Africa's fires are set deliberately n/t