The 1995 burning season in South America represented the first opportunity to monitor diurnal and seasonal burning patterns in this region from GOES-8 and provided detailed information on diurnal fire activity previously not available from any other civilian satellite. In Brazil and Bolivia the diurnal fire signature is clearly evident in the GOES-8 3.9 micron imagery. The fire activity, represented as dark hot spots is most pronounced in the 1445 and 1745 UTC imagery (mid-afternoon local time) as seen in a loop (Java animation or QuickTime loop) of 3.9 micron infrared window data (at 1145, 1445, 1745, and 2045 UTC) collected on 24 August 1995. The GOES-8 ABBA diurnal fire product for a number of countries in South America on 24 August 1995 is shown in the above composite.

Diurnal (at 1145, 1445, 1745, and 2045 UTC) multi-spectral data collected during the 1995 and 1997 fire seasons (June-October) in South America were processed with version 5.6 of the GOES-8 ABBA (Prins, Menzel, and Feltz, 1998). The above figure presents composites of the GOES-8 ABBA processed, saturated, cloudy, and high probability fire pixels detected at 1745 UTC during the 1995 and 1997 fire seasons. Similar burning patterns are evident in both years. Much of the burning occurred along the perimeter of the Amazon in the Brazilian states of Maranhao, Tocantins, Para, Mato Grosso, Amazonas, Rondonia, and Acre, and in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Northern Argentina. Both composites show distinct burning patterns along rivers and in areas with recent road construction (Locations A and B). More fires were detected at locations B (Rondonia, Brazil; Bolivia) and C (Paraguay) in 1995 than 1997. In 1997 increased burning was observed near the city of Manaus, Brazil (location D) and in northeastern Brazil. Overall there was an 8% decrease in GOES-8 observed fires from 1995 to 1997 during the months of June through October (Prins et al., 1998).