Image: Fires in Southeastern United States

Many plumes of smoke from fires burning across the southeastern United States of America can be seen here. The fires are affecting several states including Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and Florida.

There are currently over 1000 new fires in the past week across the South. There were 17 new large fires with 3 being uncontained as well as numerous smaller ones. A "large fire" is defined by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) as a wildfire of 100 acres or more occurring in timber, or a wildfire of 300 acres or more occurring in grass/sage.

In addition to these wildfires there are many prescribed fires which are set and watched over by various agencies to either rid areas of undergrowth that could cause problems later during the hotter, drier months, or for agricultural purposes.

This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on March 27, 2013. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.