Fire Alarms from Orbit

NASA’s doing some pretty interesting things with their satellites these days; caught this in the Earth Observatory e-mail today:

““There’s a fire season somewhere in South Africa all the time,” says researcher Philip Frost of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). During the dry summer, fires sweep over the landscape on the southwest coast, and the warm, dry winters in the northeast spur grass fires that consume the savanna. South Africa also has a subculture that views fire as a tool for everything from hunting and land management to encouraging rain. Fire is a daily problem in South Africa.…”