October 14, 2022 - Fires along the Parana River, Argentina

Fires
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Widespread fires continue to burn along the wetlands and floodplain of
Argentina’s Parana River through mid-October 2022, pouring heavy smoke
into the atmosphere. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of
dozens of active fires, some of which appear quite large, along the
thin course of the Parana River on October 13. Smoke from the fires is
blowing primarily southeast and extend beyond the city of Buenos Aries,
which can be seen as a large area of gray-brown pixels on the south
side of the muddy Rio de la Plata.

Fires sprung up along the Parana River as early as February of this
year, and by August local and international media published reports of
severe damage to the wetlands near the city of Rosario. On August 22,
Copernicus published an Image of the Day of the inferno. The caption
explained that the blazes, which ignited following a prolonged period
of drought and scarce rainfall, had burnt nearly 100,000 hectares of
land just in the previous two weeks.

On August 17, the Buenos Aries Times quoted the Deputy Environment
Minister as saying, “It is inevitable that setting fires in these
adverse weather conditions, with a drought that has lasted four years
and a strong drop in the Parana River, is criminal. Whoever sets fires
in these conditions cannot be unaware of the context in which they are
doing it.” Argentina had declared a water emergency on July 26, 2021,
after extended poor rainfalls led to the river’s lowest water flow in
78 years. In May 2022, that emergency was extended due to continued
lack of rainfall and low water levels. Light rain arrived in early
October, but not nearly enough to assuage the critical situation—or
douse the widespread fire activity.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/13/2022
Resolutions: 1km (37.6 KB), 500m (146.6 KB), 250m (507.1
KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-10-14

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