Late-Season Fires near Amur River

Even as winter approaches, what are most likely agricultural fires still burn in early November near the Amur River at the border of China and Russia.

Winter is encroaching all around, with snow dusting the landscape, but these fires (red dots) burning south of the Amur River that runs along the China (south)-Russia (north) border suggest that farmers aren?t quite through with the season. This region is heavily cultivated, and it is likely that these fires are agricultural in purpose, perhaps to clear the land of the remains of harvested crops. This process returns the nutrients of stalks and husks to the soil in anticipation of the next planting. This true-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on November 5, 2002.

A month before, the fires were burning north of the Amur in Russia.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Aqua/MODIS

  • Start Date

    2002-11-05

  • Event Start Date

    2002-11-05

  • NH Image ID

    5242

  • NH Event ID

    5160

  • NH Posting Date

    2002-11-06