The aftermath of oil fires in Qayyarah, Iraq - Earth.com

The aftermath of oil fires in Qayyarah, Iraq

Today’s Image of the Day comes courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory and features a look at the scorched earth left behind after the oil fires in Qayyarah, Iraq have finally been extinguished.

This false-color photo was captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite.

The oil fires were first detected by NASA satellites in May 2016 and burned intermittently for months. Since July 2016, the flames blazed daily until finally being extinguished on April 4, 2017. According to Rudaw, 18 of the 50 oil wells in the region were set on fire by militants.

By Rory Arnold, Earth.com

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

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