File:Fires and dust in Central Africa (MODIS 2015-01-15).jpg

English: The agricultural fire season continued in full force across Central Africa, as well as a highly active dust conditions, in early January, 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA�s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on January 10 as it passed over the region.

Thick bands of pale tan dust lift from central Chad and blow to the southwest across Niger, Nigeria and the northern tip of Cameroon. Further south, hundreds of fires light up the green land of the Central African Republic. Additional fires burn in the countries surrounding the Central African Republic, which are (from the north, clockwise) Chad, Sudan and South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cameroon. The northern tip of Congo, seen between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, has only a few red hotspots. The fires in the Central African Republic, though, seem to have grown exponentially since earlier in the month, while in locations the fires appear diminished.

The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Although primarily agricultural in origin, the heavy dust storms in the north suggest that heavy winds may be present in some or all of the pictured countries � and heavy winds can easily turn a well-managed agricultural fire into a wildfire.

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 such hot spots are diagnostic for 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 and can have deleterious effects to health. A thick pall of smoke can be seen across most of the southern region in this image.