GFMC: Forest Fires in the Russian Federation

Forest Fires in the Russian Federation

02 April 2003


Latest Satellite Images 

Fires in Volga River Delta and Southwest Russia
In southwestern Russia, snow has retreated from the brown landscape, and farmers are preparing land for the spring planting. This Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from 31 March 2003, shows scattered fires marked with red dots. Fires are concentrated in the fan-shaped Volga River Delta at right and all along the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains at bottom). Ice persists in the northeastern corner of the Caspian Sea (right edge), while ice-free coastal waters swirl with colors that indicate a bloom of aquatic plant life. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.

Source: NASA/EO

MODIS satellite image of 31 March 2003,
showing fires in the eastern part of the Russian Federation

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 shows fire activities in the Russian Federation.

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Latest NOAA 12&14 AVHRR composite
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)

Latest fire situation report by the Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service of Russia (Avialesookhrana), 30 March 2003:

The 2003 Fire season in Russia has started. Potential territories currently at fire risk are Buriatia, Chita, Amur, South of Khabarovsk, Primorje, South of Irkutsk and South of Krasnojarsk. Even though there are low fire danger class there, dry grass and strong spring winds are increasing the fire danger. Fires are going on in Buriatia, Chita and Amur regions. All of them are occurring in the grassland interface.

According to the situation report of the Ministry of Natural Resources of 30 March 2003 a total of 21 fires affected 1,179 ha forested and 1,100 ha non-forested areas. In addition 2 fires occurred that were put out the same day when they started. Since the beginning of the 2003 fire season for Ministry of Natural Resources reported a total of 83 fires that have affected 2,068 ha forested and 1,494 ha non-forested land.

Some fires in Chita and Amur regions are classified as large fires.

Chita – 4 large fires (largest fire: 100 ha)

Amur – 2 large fires (largest fire: 2300 ha)

Through all of Russia on fire fighting have been involved 182 people, 1 aircraft, 38 bulldozers, tractors and engines.

Source: Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service of Russia (Avialesookhrana)

For more information on the recent fire situation in Russia see: Recent Media Highlights on Fire, Policies, and Politics.

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:
https://gfmc.online/fwf/eurasia1.htm

Example of the Eurasian Experimental Fire Weather Information System:
Latest map of the Experimental Fire Weather Index (FWI) for Russia and neighbouring countries

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 Kray used in the maps are designations of administrative regions. A map showing the boundaries ofadministrative regions and a legend is included below.

ru_fire_legend.gif (937 Byte)

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Map legend

Administrative boundaries

Overview map showing large fire locations detected over the last 10 days

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Overview

Latest maps maps showing fire activities (selection)

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Buryatia Republic Buryatia Republic Buryatia Republic

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Buryatia Republic Buryatia Republic Buryatia Republic

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Chitinskaya Oblast Chitinskaya Oblast Chitinskaya Oblast

For more details on fire in the Russian Federation:

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.


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