The <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fire" title="Fire">fires</a> are outlined in <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Red" class="mw-redirect" title="Red">red</a>. Most of the fires are concentrated in Bolivia, where the governments of two states had declared a state of <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Emergency" title="Emergency">emergency</a> because of widespread fires three days earlier. Scores of fires also burn in <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil" class="mw-redirect" title="Brazil">Brazil</a>, <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Paraguay" title="Paraguay">Paraguay</a>, and <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Argentina" title="Argentina">Argentina</a>.
The fires cloak the <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Heart" title="Heart">heart</a> of <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/South_America" class="mw-redirect" title="South America">South America</a> in <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gray" class="mw-redirect" title="Gray">gray</a>-<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/White" class="mw-redirect" title="White">white</a> <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smoke" title="Smoke">smoke</a>. Spreading north and south along the east side of the <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Andes" title="Andes">Andes</a> <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mountains" title="Mountains">Mountains</a>, the smoke extends over the entire 2,500-kilometre length of the image. While some fires do occur naturally in Bolivia, most of these fires were probably set deliberately to clear land for <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Crops" title="Category:Crops">crops</a> or <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pasture" title="Category:Pasture">pasture</a>.
Jeff Schmaltz
2010-08-23
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45449">NASA Earth Observatory</a>