February 24, 2023 - Burn Scars in Iberá National Park, Argentina

Burn Scars
Tweet
Share

Fires blazed through a protected wilderness in northeastern Argentina
in February 2023. Home to jaguars, capybaras, and giant anteaters,
Iberá National Park has reportedly been burning since late December
2022, and continued to burn as of February 22, 2023.

On February 22, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a false-color image showing
a massive burn scar, which appears brick-red against the bright green
unburned vegetation, in and near Iberá National Park. Orange and
yellow, representing actively burning fire, can be seen along the
southern and south-eastern edge of the burn scar. The second MODIS
Terra image, acquired on February 12, shows two much smaller burn scars
in the same area, and comparing the two shows the astounding growth of
the fire in just ten days. The waterway to the north is the Paraná
River.

Iberá National Park is a protected area of wetlands and grasslands
established in 2018 with land acquired by conservation groups and then
donated to the government of Argentina. Encompassing 1,370 square
kilometers (530 square miles) of the Corrientes region, the park is
part of a “rewilding” program which aims to reintroduce keystone
species to the oasis such as jaguars and capybaras that have previously
been driven away by hunting, ranching, and other human activities.

This area of Argentina is no stranger to fires. Last year more than
520,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) were burned in the Corrientes
region and surrounding provinces. In 2022 and so far in 2023, fire
activity has been unusually high in the region, according to Mark
Parrington, senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring
Service (CAMS). The CAMS Global Fire Assimilation System uses active
fire data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) sensors to estimate emissions of vegetation fires which are
then used to forecast the air quality impacts of biomass burning.

“For the second year in a row Corrientes province is experiencing much
higher fire activity than experienced over the last two decades,”
Parrington said. “So far this year, the fires seem to be much more
localized around the Iberá wetlands compared to more widespread fires
across northern Argentina and southern Paraguay in 2022.”

Although the origin of the fires is not clear, prolonged drought and
high temperatures in the region have contributed to the ongoing
burning. On February 13, Argentina’s National Meteorological Service
issued high-temperature warnings, as temperatures reached around 40° C
(104° F) in parts of central and northern Argentina. This is already
the eighth heatwave in the country this summer, according to the
national meteorological service. As the sweltering heat moved from
southern Argentina to the north over the course of February, it broke
temperature records in 27 Argentine cities.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 2/22/2023
Resolutions: 1km (148.9 KB), 500m (352.4 KB), 250m (197.7
KB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-02-24

--- up 51 weeks, 4 days, 21 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)