GFMC: Forest Fires in the Russian Federation
Forest Fires in the Russian Federation
22 October 2001
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 22 October 2001 shows fire activities in the Russian Federation.
NOAA 12 & 14 AVHRR composite of 22 October 2001, 02:51 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 neighbouringcountries, 21 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 ofadministrative regions and a legend is included below.
Map legend
Administrative boundaries
21 October 2001:
Overview map showing large fire locations covering the10-days period 11 October to 21 October 2001:
Overview
Evreiski Autonomous Region Evreiski Autonomous Region Evreiski Autonomous Region
Krasnoyarski Krai
Primorskiy Krai Ust-Ordinskiy Burjatskiy Autonomous Oblast
For more background information on the Russian Federation see: Recent Media Highlights on Fire, Policies, and Politics
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.
