Fires in northwestern Argentina
In November 2022, several months into Argentina’s fire season, fire was visible in the northwestern part of the country.
Smoke from forest fires can be seen in this natural color image, which was acquired on the morning of November 27, 2022, Medium Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at NASA Terra satellite. The red dots indicate the location active fire detectors observed Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) by NASA-NOAA Finnish nuclear power plant satellite later in the afternoon.
Most of the fires shown here are in Argentina’s Salta province, with some visible in Jujuy province to the south and Bolivia to the north. According to Flavio Speranza, a forestry engineer at Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), the fires burned in several forest ecosystems: subtropical forests at low and medium altitudes, and premontane and montane forests on mountain slopes.
Almost all forest fires in the region are caused by human activity, Speranza pointed out. During hunting and fishing trips, fires are routinely started for the maintenance of pastures and roads, for the disposal of yard waste and domestic waste, and for cooking. Fire caused 535,000 hectares (2,070 sq mi) of tree cover in Argentina between 2001 and 2021. Global Forest Watch. This corresponds to 8.5 percent of the total tree cover during that period.
Speranza noted that so far in 2022, Argentina has seen a significant increase in the number of fires due to the prolonged unusual weather. warm, dry weather. One likely reason is La Niña, which has appeared for the third year in a row. During La Niña events, clouds and rain become more sporadic in the central and eastern Pacific, which can lead to dry conditions in Argentina and other parts of South America.
The fire season that started in August usually ends in January. But the exact end date, Speranza said, “depends on the frequency and amount of rain.” In 2021-2022, which is also a La Niña year, Argentina saw it most fires during the first two months of the year.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/World Viewand Finland’s national Arctic Circle Partnership and MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/World View. The author of the story Kathryn Hansen.