The fires have been particularly damaging to eucalypt forests and woodlands, which thrive in areas of relatively dry and nutrient-poor soil. These forests are prone to big outbreaks of fire because many of the trees species have oil-rich foliage that is extremely flammable. The map above, based on data from Australia’s Department of Agriculture, shows the range of eucalypt forests. Red dots show the locations of fires as detected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite between November 1 and December 5, 2019. The natural-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 9, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory
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