image: Chile is in the middle of its forest fire season and a line of fires is snaking its way down the coast of the country. With a Mediterranean climate and a long dry season, Chile's single forest fire season normally occurs between October and April, with a period of maximum activity between December and February. Some 5,200 forest fires are recorded each season on average. Fires tends to stay within certain boundaries on the coast of the country as further north of the city of Puerto Montt, vegetation is scarce or non-existent in the Atacama Desert, and in the southern regions near, Coyhaique and Punta Arenas cities, the abundant moisture and low population density (fewer than 0.7 inhabitants per square kilometer) protect the lush, thousand-year-old Humid Temperate Native Forests from fires. (This information is from the Global Fire Monitoring Center website). This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on December 01, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. view more
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner