Using an innovative satellite technique, NASA scientists
have determined that a previously unmapped type of wildfire in the Amazon
rainforest is responsible for destroying several times more forest than has
been lost through deforestation in recent years.
In the southern Amazon rainforest, fires below the forest
treetops, or "understory fires," have been hidden from view from NASA
satellites that detect actively burning fires. The new method has now led to
the first regional estimate of understory fire damages across the southern
Amazon.