Nighttime view of Russian wildfires from space

Wildfires are burning across the United States right now, but we have some very unwelcome company: for months there have been raging fires in Russia as well, conflagrations burning up vast swaths of the forests there. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite has a camera on board that can detect very low levels of visible and infrared red light. It's sensitive enough to be able to see wildfires at night, and took this eerie image on August 3, 2012: