File:Fires in central Russia (MODIS 2016-07-20).jpg

English: On July 12, 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite flew over central Russia and captured a true-color image of dozens of fires burning across the region. Each individual red hotspot marks an area where the thermal bands on the MODIS instrument detected temperatures markedly higher than background. When combined with typical smoke, as in this image, such hotspots are diagnostic for actively burning fire.

Many of the fires appear to be burning in dark green areas typical of taiga (forest). Viewed at high resolution some of the fires appear at the edge of very large burn scars - areas where the fire has burned away all the fuel, leaving a charred appearance from space. Most of the blazes are accompanied by very heavy smoke and most of the plumes blow to the southwest, although there is variation in the direction of the plumes dependent on the direction of the prevailing wind. The image is centered in the Krasnoyarsk region.

The 2015-2016 winter across much of northern Russia, especially Siberia, has been both very warm and dry, leading to tinder-box conditions. An international team of scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Russia's Sukachev Institute of Forest are currently working in an extremely remote location in northeastern Siberia, studying forest conditions and impacts of climate change. Dr. Jon Ranson, a scientist at NASA, reported that the conditions at their location were remarkably dry, with the vegetation "almost crispy" to the touch - a condition he has not experienced in this region previously. While their location is well east of this image, the impression of such extremely dry conditions on the ground may well help illustrate the high fire risk that exists throughout much of Russia this spring and summer.