We show that atmospheric UV/visible backscatter spectra obtained by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) spectrometer on board the ESA ERS-2 satellite may be used to retrieve column amounts of key trace species associated with smoke cloud combustion from biomass burning events. This paper focuses on the recent rain forest burning in SE Asia (August--October 1997). For ground scenes with low cloudiness, differential absorption fitting applied to backscatter spectra yields column distributions of NO2 and H2CO in and around smoke-polluted regions. A two-fold increase in the vertical NO2 content is apparent over large parts of the smoke cloud; this clearly indicates the ability of GOME to measure tropospheric NO2 content. H2CO is detected only in areas closest to combustion sources. Slant column amounts in the range 2.5-4¿1016 mol cm-2 have been determined; these correspond with previous estimations of vertical columns of H2CO for biomass Savannah burning. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union