Siberian Wildfires

Smoky fires burn in Zabaikalsky Territory in southern Siberia, Russia, on April 14, 2015, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this image. The fires were outlined in red by NASA's Earth Observatory which also marked the border of China, right, and Mongolia, lower left. Several dark burn scars are visible through the smoke. In April 2015, unusually warm temperatures and strong winds turned the agricultural tradition of burning dried grass in the spring to fertilise the soil into a nightmare. Several fires escaped the control of their handlers and spread rapidly across the dry landscape. According to media reports, escaped fires had devastated several villages, caused the deaths of about two dozen people, and left thousands of people homeless.