This Australian Wildfire Is as Big as Melbourne

Let this image stand as a testament to the biblical fury of Australia's perennial bushfires: It shows the continent crackling and popping at night with blazes that in the case of one, the Snowy River Complex fire, are as sprawling as the city of Melbourne.

I'm not sure how NASA did the measurements, but the agency assures the conflagration "nearly matches or possibly exceeds Melbourne in size." Seen on February 10 from the high reaches above the planet, the complex's multiple fires might be mistaken for a glowing metropolis blurred by clouds. But down on the ground it's been a forest-eating monster, turning some 390 square miles of vegetation into billowing plumes of smoke that have drifted toward New Zealand, as seen in this satellite shot from Monday: