Two NOAA AVHRR satellite images of 19 May 1998 show fire activities in eastern and south-central Russia near the border to Mongolia.
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Fig.1. and 2. NOAA images of the forest fires in
eastern and south-central Russia of 19 May 1999
(Source: NOAA http://www.osei.noaa.gov/)
Figure1 shows heat signatures and smoke plumes (difficult to distinguish from cloud cover) from areas of fire burning in eastern Russia. Burn scars are visible on the island of Sakhalin. This region was seriously impacted by fires throughout the summer months of 1998.
The right satalitte image shows hot spots and smoke plumes from areas of fire burning in south-central Russia north of the border with Mongolia.
The Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service Avialesookhrana of the Federal Forest Service of Russia reports the state of fire in the 1999 fires season:
Up to 17 May 1999 a total of 4,614 fires occurred in forests under the control of the Federal Forest Service of Russia, burning a total of 68,879 ha of forest and 39,146 ha non-forest areas (inside forest lands). During the day of 17 May 1999 a total of 170 fires were burning and affected 2317 ha forest and 571 ha of non-forest land.
The regions with highest fire activity on 17 May were:
Khabarovsk region - 25 fires -440 ha
Krasnoyarsk region- 62 fires - 574 ha
Irkutsk region -31 fires -209 ha
Altay region -3 fires-427 ha
There are some large fires in Irkutsk, Altay and South of Krasnoyarsk regions.
The Avialesookhrana homepage from the National Forest Fire Centre of Russia provides up-to-date NOAA images for the whole of the Russian Federation at http://smis.iki.rssi.ru/dataserv/engl/index.html.
This web site of the Space Monitoring Information Support Laboratory provides extensive links to sites with satellite imagery for the Russian Federation, meteorological information as well as fire related images are accessible.
See also the Russian Federation IFFN Country Notes.