image: Fires continue burning in eastern Russia and northeastern China and they were detected in this visible image from The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite on Oct. 8, 2011. Fires or hot spots appear in red in the image. Russia lies to the right/north of the squiggly black border line, and China lies to the left/south. MODIS captured this image of smoke from various fires in eastern Russia and China on Oct. 8 at 04:40 UTC (12:40 p.m. EDT). Wildfires are commonplace in this region during the fall, especially after hot, dry summers. The city of Khabarovsk is located on the banks of the great Amur River, located in the eastern (bottom right side) side of the image. The Amur River is a line that extends from the city in a northeasterly direction. Fires are also burning to the south, in China's Heilongjiang province, located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur River that flows from eastern Russia. view more
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Rob Gutro