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Borneo wildfires

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Original - Satellite image of thick smoke in Borneo from numerous wildfires, most of them likely started by the "slash-and-burn" technique of clearing forest for agriculture, though logging activities may have started the fires accidentally. The exceptionally heavy smoke is caused by the burning of the peat in the peat swamp forests of the area and it results in air pollution, disruption of air traffic, and significantly adds to greenhouse gas emissions. The red squares on the image are areas of fire, picked up by the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer's (MODIS) fire detection algorithm.
Reason
NASA's usual standard of satellite imagery; plus, I think the EV is higher than "usual" due to the well-illustrated widespread and deliberate slashing-and-burning. This island is the habitat of the Bornean orangutan, see image of juvenile nominated below.
Articles in which this image appears
Borneo peat swamp forests, Borneo, Peat swamp forest
Creator
NASA, or, more specifically, Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
  • Support as nominator —Maedin\talk 18:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support High quality image of course. I'm glad the red boxes were added by NASA, eliminating any potential original research that may have been done by us. Good EV. Jujutacular T · C 22:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • This makes an interesting read. I wonder which version of the fire detection algo was used in the picture (it was taken 2002). The original algorithm does not seem perfect, and it should not be idolized. In fact it is pretty obvious that a couple of fires were missed. False positives are harder to tell though. As far as I can see the algorithm works completely independent of the occurence of smoke, and I would not call it OR to infer that if there is smoke in a forrest there is a fire. --Dschwen 21:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Very high EV, but a pitty that two peninsulas are slightly croped and is not north aligned. --Elekhh (talk) 05:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Took me a while to see the lack of north alignment. Indeed, north seems to be a few degrees to the left. I'd be more concerned if the primary encyclopedic value of this image was geographic. Jujutacular T · C 06:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
just out of curiosity how can you tell this isn't north alligned? Gazhiley (talk) 12:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Compare with any map of Borneo, for instance: File:Borneo Topography.png. Look closely at a specific small detail of the coastline, some place that it would be easy to see orientation. You'll see that this image is rotated slightly counter-clockwise. I also double-checked with google earth. Jujutacular T · C 17:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given the satellites' paths [1], the raw images won't be north-aligned. North-aligning them without hugely increasing the resolution would cause some detail to be lost. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wow fair play good spotting there... Even with this and another image side by side it took me a while to spot that! Gazhiley (talk) 12:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Borneo fires and smoke, 2002.jpg --Makeemlighter (talk) 04:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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