Fig.1. This NOAA AVHRR composite of yesterday (27 May
1999) was generated at 05:22 GMT and used Satellite passes of NOAA 12 and 14 between 02:45
and 07:42 GMT. This composite was selected because the main fire regions in Central
Siberia are ca. 9-10 hrs ahead of GMT, thus representing the early afternoon situation
during which wildfires are most active.
(Source: The satellite maps containing fire information are found under
"Cloudiness Maps" at http://nffc.infospace.ru/engl/main.htm.
For details (enlargements, other scenes produced earlier or later) the GFMC readers are encouraged to click on the hyperlinks provided by the Avialesookhrana website. 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://nffc.infospace.ru/engl/main.htm . The 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.
The Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service Avialesookhrana of the Federal Forest Service of Russia regularly reports the state of fire in the 1999 fire season to the GFMC. The latest report is dated two days ago:
Up to 26 May 1999 a total of 6,399 fires occured in forests under the control of the Federal Forest Service of Russia, burning a total of about 120,000 ha of forest and 78,500 ha non-forest areas.During the day of 25 May 1999 a total of 466 fires were burning and affected 12,800 ha (including 5,800 ha crown fires) forest and 4,400 ha of non-forest lands. The regions with highest fire activity on 25 May were:
Krasnoyarsk region - 64 fires burning 9,490 ha
Irkutsk region -81 fires / 1,115 ha
Buriatia - 35 fires / 326 ha
Tuva -19 fires / 774 ha
On 26 May there were 11 large fires (> 200 ha) burning in Irkutsk region and 15 in Krasnoyarsk region.
The National Forest Fire Center of Russia AVIALESOOKHRANA realizes forest and deer pasture fire control on a territory of more than 800 million ha. The structure of Avialesookhrana includes 21 Regional Forest Fire Centers (aviation bases), two independent subdivisions, uniform clothes factory and the Vladimir state aviation company. Avialesookhrana rents annually from the Civil aviation companies 600 aircraft and has its own aviation park consisting of 60 aircraft including fixedwing planes and helicopters, 20 from them are airtankers and airscoopers. The staff of Avialesookhrana consists of highly skilled specialists: 520 pilot-observes, 4500 smokejumpers and helirappellers as well as more than 2,300 other specialists.
The average number of fires occurs annually are 15000-30000. With the help of aviation are detected about 85% and put out more than 60% of total fires in Russian forests.
For more details on fire in the Russian Federation: See IFFN Country Notes.
Scientific details on fire in the Russian Federation are provided by the Fire Research Campaign Asia-North (FIRESCAN) report.
Bibliography on fire in ecosystems of boreal Eurasia:One of the results of the first international fire science conference in the Russian Federation (1993) was the publication of a monograph on fire in boreal Eurasia, including some selected contributions on boreal North America. The literature cited in the monograph contains numerous publications which in many cases are not easily accessible. To facilitate literature search the bibliographical sources are provided by topic (chapter).
The photographs below show: (1) a fire burning in Krasnoyarsk region , (2) close look to a high intensity surface fire developing to a crown fire in a pine forest of Krasnoyarsk region, (3) aerial view of a fire detected by aerial observers from a fixed-wing biplane (AN-2), (4) a Russian smokejumper landing nearby a fire site.
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