English: Smoke from wildfires burning in Australia’s Northern Territory poured across the Timor Sea to cover much of Timor Leste (East Timor) in mid-June 2019. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of the smoky scene on June 21.

Most of the fires in this image, marked by red hot spots, are burning on Tiwi Islands. The Tiwi Islands are part of Australia’s Northern Territory, Australia. They lie in the Timor Sea, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Darwin. The Tiwi Islands consist of Melville Island, Bathurst Island and 9 other smaller and uninhabited islands.

On the islands, agricultural burning is an important land management tool. The Tiwi Island Fire Council noted on their website, “The tropical savannas of northern Australia are among the most fire-prone ecosystems on Earth, with up to half of many savanna landscapes, including the Tiwi Islands, being burnt each year. Fire plays a key role in maintaining the open vegetation structure that most savanna plants and animals require. However, there is concern that fire frequency in some areas is too high, and that this is having a negative impact on biodiversity.”

Fires are common on the Tiwi Islands in the dry season, especially from March to August. Over hundreds of years, the indigenous peoples of the Tiwi Islands created a unique calendar based on natural cycles. The time from March-August is known as Kumunupunari, or “the season of fire and smoke”. It is said that the time of Kumunupunari has started when fire and smoke is present. The onset of high humidity and high heat marks the onset of Tiyari, the hot and wet season, usually in late August or September. This natural cycle points to the importance of fire in maintaining the natural landscape of the Tiwi Islands. Large fires, which become more common as the dry season progresses, can severely damage the unique flora of the island and poses a danger to biodiversity.