Scores of small fires (marked in red) were scattered across southern Russia on either side of the Volga River (runs north-south in right hand portion of scene), on August 23, 2004. This region between the Black and Caspian Seas (both out of scene to the southwest and southeast, respectively) is part of the Eurasian steppes, a flat, treeless area of southeastern Europe and central Asia. Today the region is a mixture of crop and grasslands. The fires pictured here are likely agricultural, with ...