image: The Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of oil fires burning in the country of Iraq. Due to the fact that the fires are oil-based the smoke coming off the fires is black rather than the grey color usually associated with forest fires. The red marks on the image denote areas where the thermal bands on the Terra satellite detected areas of heat. In this case these fires could either be fires emanating from the oil rigs as evidenced by the black smoke, or gas flares from the tops of the oil rigs (where the red marks show up but smoke is not visible). Of course, some of these fires could also be natural fires, either human-made or lightning-based.
This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on October 09, 2016.
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner