The NASA probe has recorded thousands of fires in Central Africa
MOSCOW, 9 Aug — RIA Novosti. Virtually the entire territory of Central Africa between the Sahara and the Great African lakes to the East of the continent was covered by forest fires, most of which erupted through the fault of the farmers, according to the Institute for space studies NASA Goddard.
Every year forests on almost every continent of the Earth become the victims of massive fires caused by both natural processes and a careless and even deliberate actions of people. For example, one of the reasons of emergence of fires in Transbaikalia two years ago were residents of the region who raised the fires in the forests of the region and burned the grass around their cottages.
Something similar, but in a more massive form, as to tell NASA that occurs in Central Africa, which is still dominated by primitive slash and burn agriculture. Every year the farmers of countries in this part of the “black continent” cut down and burn large areas of jungle, use them for a few years and then throw, moving to a new part of the forest.
The growth of Africa’s population, global warming and increased frequency of fires for other reasons, including as a result of lightning strikes, led to the fact that the area of such fires has improved markedly in recent years.
Latest images taken by the VIIRS instrument on Board the climate Suomi NPP satellite, show that today in the territory of Equatorial Africa has been ravaged by a thousand fires, saturating the air with the ash particles, aerosols, carbon monoxide and other combustion products. This, according to scientists, significantly affects the quality of air in Africa and adversely affects the life of farmers using fire to clear fields.