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Relentless Fires of Russia

Sixty-seven fires are burning relentlessly near Lake Baikal and on the Kamchatka Peninsula on Russia’s eastern coast for more than two months with no signs of ending any time soon.

Russian firefighters are not actively fighting these fires and if it remains hot and dry in this region, theses fires could continue through the summer

The Medford, OR paper the Medford Mail Tribune reports that winds are now pushing the smoke from these fires across the Pacific Ocean where it had been hovering for several days. Heavy smoke from these fires have emerged from Medford north to Vancouver, B.C.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard Aqua has infrared capabilities that can detect heat from the various wildfires. The image was captured on July 30, 2012 at 07:10 UTC (3:10 a.m. EDT). In the MODIS images, fires, or hot spots are color coded as red areas in imagery and smoke appears in light brown. Images are generated at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Image: Jeff Schmaltz, NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team; Caption: Lynn Jenner, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center