Widespread Fires in Himalayas

NASA’s Aqua satellite recently captured this view of an unusual occurrence: large-scale fires in the Himalayan Mountains. This image — covering thousands of square miles in Nepal, India, and Tibet — shows the world’s highest mountain range, including the peaks of Mt. Everest and Annapurna. The fires, marked by red dots, are concentrated in northern Nepal at lower elevations of the Himalayas. Nepal commonly experiences some small forest fires in spring, but this year’s are especially severe and widespread because of unusually dry conditions in the region since last fall. Some of the fires were set by poachers attempting to flush game. Especially heavy fires — creating smoke trails that stretched 100 miles — burned in and around the Makala Barun National Park southeast of Mt. Everest.