File:Kamchatka Peninsula, eastern Russia (MODIS 2016-07-09).jpg

English: Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula wore a mantle of summer-time green as fires continue to burn near the western coast in early July 2016. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on July 5 as it passed over the region.

Snow tops the Central Mountains (Sredinny Range) as well as several of the taller volcanic peaks on the eastern side of the peninsula, while large banks of cloud hug the western coast over the Sea of Okhotsk and tuck into the southeastern coast. In the southeast, the capital city of the region and the largest city in Kamchatka, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, appears to be covered with low cloud (fog).

The thermal bands on the MODIS instrument detected three distinct hot spots (areas of high temperature) on July 5. Two hotspots on the western side of the mountains appear to be associated with blacked, roughly circular areas. These are burn scars - areas where a fire has burned most of the fuel, leaving the land with a charred appearance. Hot spots on the edges of burn scars are highly suggestive of actively burning fire. The westernmost hotspot also has a large plume of gray smoke rising from it, and then blowing to the northeast. The combination of smoke and a hotspot is diagnostic for actively burning fire. This fire has been burning for well over a month, and the burn scar is remarkably large.

The hotspot near the eastern coast sits near the snow-covered peak of an active volcano, and a brown plume of ash can be seen rising from the volcano, indicating current activity. The Klyuchevskoy volcano is one of Russia's highest volcanoes and one of the world's most active. It has frequent eruptions which can include fountains of lava as well as emission of ash. According to Volcano Discovery, the effusive-explosive eruption of the volcano was continuing through July 7, with an active lava flow present on the eastern slope of the summit. The hotspot at this location marks the heat associated with lava flow and volcanic activity, rather than fire.