Satellite photo shows extent of bushfires in Australia? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

An image spreading on social media claims to show a satellite photo of Australia during the bushfires that have rapidly spread across the country in 2019 and 2020.

MISSING CONTEXT

To be clear, this image appears on social media in some instances under an accurate description, and in other instances it is shown with a misleading description.

The misleading descriptions claim the image is a satellite photo, or a photo taken from the International Space Station. This isn’t true, since the image isn’t a photo at all. It is a 3D visualisation that accumulates all of the areas in Australia that have been on fire over a period of a month (5th December 2019 – 5th January 2020) and inputs them onto a 3D graphic of Australia.

It doesn’t show a single moment in time, since the areas on the map were not necessarily on fire at the same time.


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It is important to get these facts correct, but despite this, the 3D visualisation still shows the devastatingly large extent of the bushfires to have inflicted themselves on Australia, which cannot be downplayed.

According to the author of the graphic, Anthony Hearsey, the information used to compile the graphic was obtained from NASA’s FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System.) He notes on Facebook –

This is a 3D visualisation of the fires in Australia. NOT A PHOTO. Think of this as prettier looking graph.
This is made from data from NASA’s FIRMS (Satellite data regarding fires) between 05/12/19 – 05/01/20.
These are all the areas which have been affected by bushfires.
Scale is a little exaggerated due to the render’s glow, but generally true to the info from the NASA website. Also note that NOT all the areas are still burning, and this is a compilation.

Given that the information in the visualisation appears to be generally accurate, yet some social media users inaccurately label the visualisation as a photo, we rank it ‘missing context’.

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