image: The Siberia region of Russia is well known for its unforgiving cold winters, but this time it is summer that is taking a toll on this area of Russia. More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from the Sakha Republic, the largest region of the Russian Federation, because of rampant wildfires. The area of wildfires in the Sakha Republic has doubled to over 76,000 hectares (187,800 acres) and there is a threat to eight settlements in the area. The cause of these fires was revealed to be "dry thunderstorms" which broke out in the region at the end of July. Dry thunderstorms are generated when enough moisture is drawn over an area to form storm clouds at high levels of the atmosphere. Because the air below the clouds is still dry, most of the rain that falls evaporates before the water can reach the landscape below. However, lightning and high winds often accompany these storms and cause fires to break out and spread. Burn scars from previous fires dot the landscape showing the large areas already affected to date.
This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on Aug. 17, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner