Wildfires Light Up Western Australia

This nighttime image of Wildfires light up Western Australia was cropped from the Suomi NPP “Black Marble” released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in December 2012.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC.

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. Therefore It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west. Also the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east. And South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia’s largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres. Therefore making it the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia’s Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority (92 per cent) live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area,leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.