Avialesookhrana
from the National Forest Fire Centre of Russia provides up-to-date NOAA images
for the whole of the Russian Federation and neighbour territories. 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 NOAA AVHRR satellite image composite of 8 October 2001 shows fire
activities in the Russian Federation.
NOAA 12 & 14 AVHRR composite of 8 October 2001, 02:44
GMT.
The red squares indicate regions of active fires. For details the GFMC readers
are encouraged to
use the hyperlinks provided by Avialesookhrana, the Aerial Forest Fire
Protection Service of the
Federal Forest service of Russia. (Source: Avialesookhrana cloudiness maps)
According to the situation report of the Ministry of Natural Resources of 7 October 2001 a total of 42 fires affected 110 ha forested and 178 ha non-forested areas. Since the beginning of the 2001 fire season a total of 19,353 fires affected 749,414 ha forested and 413,380 ha non-forested land. Highest fire activities on 7 October occurred in Khabarovsk region - 6 large fires, Vladivostok - 3, Chita – 3. Even though large Fires in Khabarovsk are contained or partly contained the drought of the last months and the currently dry weather conditions make the control of large fires is very difficult. Another reason for the continuation of fires and smoke is the fact that some fires are affecting deep organic fuels (peat). Because the fires, which are all human-caused are occurring nearby towns, there are big smoke-pollution problems severely affecting the local communities. Another reason for the current fire situation in the Russian Far East is the finance problems of the fire fighting organizations.
Source: Yevgheny Shuktomov, Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service Avialesookhrana
Eurasian Experimental Fire Weather
Information System
The system has been developed by forest fire researchers from Canada, Russia and Germany
is displayed on this website starting 18 July 2001. Complete information and a set of
daily fire weather and fire behaviour potential maps covering Eurasia (the Baltic Region,
Eastern Europe, countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Mongolia) can be
accessed at:
http://www.uni-freiburg.de/fireglobe/fwf/eurasia.htm
|
|
Figure 1. Example of the Eurasian
Experimental Fire Weather Information System:
The Experimental Fire Weather Index (FWI) for Russia and neighbouring
countries, 7 October 2001.
Daily Fire Occurrence and Fire Danger Maps of the Fire Laboratory
of the Sukachev Institute of Forest, Krasnoyarsk
Selected fire occurrence maps, satellite images and a forest fire danger map are prepared
daily by the Russian GFMC correspondent Dr. Anatoly Sukhinin, Fire Laboratory of the
Sukachev Institute of Forest, Krasnoyarsk, in collaboration with the
Emergency Situation Monitoring and Forecasting Agency, Krasnoyarsk branch. The maps
are produced on the base of satellite data (classification by the NOAA AVHRR). They show
the fire locations (by latitude and longitude) and the area affected by fire (red
signature, size in ha). The red arrow at each fire location points to the nearest
populated place. The terms Oblast or Krai used in the maps are
designations of administrative regions. A map showing the boundaries of
administrative regions and a legend is included below.
|
|
Map legend |
Administrative boundaries |
7 October 2001:
Overview map showing large fire locations covering the 10-days period 27 September to 7 October 2001:
|
|
| Overview |
 |
 |
 |
| Altaiski Krai | Amurskaia Oblast | Amurskaia Oblast |
 |
 |
 |
| Kasakhstan | Irkutskaia Oblast | Krasnoyarski Krai |
Operational
Significant Event Imagery (OSEI)
The following significant events were identified by Satellite
Analysis Branch meteorologists and reviewed by the OSEI support team of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
 |
NESDIS/OSEI NOAA-12 POES AVHRR LAC satellite image, 2 October 2001.
Heat signatures (red) and smoke (light blue haze) are visible from fires
burning in eastern Russia. Blazes are threatening the town of
Khabarovsk, which has had to shut down its airport. In total the fires
have reportedly covered some 40,000 hectares.
For more background information on the Russian Federation
see:
Recent Media Highlights on Fire, Policies,
and Politics ,
especially Forest fires ravage Far East, make life nasty for tens of
thousands.
For more details on fire in the Russian Federation, Mongolia and China: 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).
Goldammer, J.G. and V.V.Furyaev. 1996. Fire
in Ecosystems of Boreal Eurasia. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 390 p.