Fires Across Central Africa
Fires Across Central Africa. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fires were burning in Central Africa when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on June 18, 2004. The fires, marked in red, were probably deliberately started by farmers clearing land for agriculture. While not intrinsically dangerous, the fires are clogging the air with wide-spread haze. The large dark green area in the lower left corner of the image was nearly completely covered by the Zambezi River for several months earlier in the year. From the numerous fires around the river, it appears that farmers are beginning to reclaim the land. The countries shown in this image include, from the top left corner going clockwise, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. The bright white feature in the lower left corner is the Etosha Pan, a large salt pan in Namibia.
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe are members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).Six of those states (Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon) are also members of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and share a common currency, the Central African CFA franc.[2] The African Development Bank defines Central Africa as Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. Middle Africa is an analogous term used by the United Nations in its geoscheme for Africa. It includes the same countries as the African Development Bank’s definition, along with Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
