NASA's Terra satellite captures a lot of neat stuff using its uber high-tech camera known as MODIS, short for Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. The satellite's latest subject was the sparse desert of Australia's Northern Territory, where MODIS tracked the growing burn scar left by a wildfire that sizzled for nearly a month.
As is the case in the United States, wildfires in Australia tend to get a lot more media coverage when they are sparked near cities and towns. Which explains why Australians tend only to hear about fires in the more densely populated south of the country, while fires to the north are often ignored. The reality is, however, that 98 percent of wildfires in Australia occur outside the nation's southeastern and southwestern regions. And many fires blaze through the continent's Norther Territory, a region home to some of world's largest remaining expanses of wilderness.
One such wildfire recently burned its way anonymously across the mostly empty desert and grasslands of north central Australia. Each time NASA's Terra satellite passed over, its MODIS camera catalogued the progress of the fire. The resulting images show the path of the fire and the massive scar left in the flames' wake. The fire, which lasted several weeks, left a scorched mark the size of the state of Massachusetts.
"When you look at the October 7 image, notice that the northern part of the burn scar has edges that appear to follow block fence lines or some other barrier," Rick McRae, a risk analyst for Australia's Emergency Services Bureau, told NASA. "But then in the southern part of the scar, you see a distinct change in land cover. You also start to see less regular 'fractal' boundaries showing where, each day, there were breakaways driven by prevailing winds."
Of course, what MODIS captured isn't all that rare. Few places on Earth produce as many massive, super-hot wildfires as does Australia's Northern Territory. Any given acre there burns at least once every few years.
"In fact, if you look at the surrounding area, you will see that the entire region is a mosaic of old and large burn scars," McRae added.