Fires burned in northwestern India near the Pakistan border in early November 2009. The fires were likely associated with local agriculture. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on November 8, 2009.
Red outlines indicate hotspots where MODIS has detected unusually high surface temperatures associated with actively burning fires. A thick trail of smoke blows toward the southeast, tracing a route that mimics the southern face of the Himalaya. Haze appears thickest, however, west-northwest of the cluster of fires. How much of this haze results from the fires in northwest India isn’t obvious in this image; the haze in Pakistan might contain dust as well as smoke. The Sulaiman Range west of the pocket of thick haze appears to be acting as a barrier that prevents particulate matter from traveling westward.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Michon Scott, NASA Earth Observatory
- Aqua - MODIS