GFMC: Forest Fires in the Russian Federation

2003

Forest Fires in the Russian Federation

18 Jul 2003

GFMC analysis: According to the latest satellite-derived analysis the total area burned by 17 July 2003 in the Russian Federation is 20.73 million hectares (ha). For comparison: The total area burned of the whole fire season 2002 was 11.7 million ha (see references at bottom of this web page). The regions most affected are:

– Chitinskaya Oblast 6.52 million ha

– Buryatiya Republic 4.18 million ha

– Amurskaya Oblast 2.79 million ha

During the last week the situation in the region calmed down due to favourable weather. Widespread cloud cover in the regions around Lake Baikal do not allow to receive complete satellite images.

Source of satellite data: Sukachev Institute for Forest, Krasnoyarsk (A.Sukhinin), in cooperation with EMERKOM of Russia (Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations).

GFMC General Situation Assessment (25 May 2003)

Latest satellite Images:

This scenes are a fragment of the BIRD MIR (3,8 µm) channel non geo-referenced brightness temperature record obtained over Siberia / Baikal today 17 July at 4:40 GMT and a txt-file for the scaling used in the images.
The upper line of the txt-files gives the temperature scale (up to 332.6 K) in black to white and the lower line gives the colored temperature scale (above 332.7 K) for the respective images.
A lot of forest fires – with pixel temperatures > 333 K – are visible in that region, especially South-East of lake Baikal.

Source: DLR

Forest Fires in Eastern Russia

When summer arrives, its fire season in places other than the western United States. Lightning from summer thunderstorms triggers the majority of wildfires in Russias boreal forests, and these fires can burn the trees and the deep layers of peat soil on the forest floor, releasing huge clouds of smoke. This image of fires (red dots) in eastern Russia was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 17, 2003.

Source: NASA EO

Location of large forest fires in Russia for 17 July 2003

This map is providing an overview of large fire locations in the Russian Federation. Details of fire locations reported by the regional airbases of Avialesookhrana and active fires detected by the MODIS sensors (on Terra and Aqua) are provided on two layers over a general Russian vegetation map – see: http://www.nffc.aviales.ru/data/fires_mos/view_daily_e.sht?a=russia

Source: Avialesookhrana, Pushkino

Fire danger map for 17 July 2003 for the Central Siberia:

Source: Sukachev Institute for Forest, Krasnoyarsk

Synoptic weather map for 18 July 2003 for the Russian Federation.

Source: Sukachev Institute for Forest, Krasnoyarsk

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.

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), 18 July 2003

Some rains for the last several days cool down a fire activities in Krasnoiarsk, Tuva, Irkutsk regions. But it is still pretty well large fire burning in Buriatia and Chita rgions. Tradional Mongolian every summer rains which were effected that areas did not occur this year. It have increased fire activities in Far East, beginning from Magadan and Kamchatka in the North ending in Vladivostok in the Sourth. Extensive anticyclone have came to European part of Russia so it need expect rising some fire activities there.

According to the situation report of the Ministry of Natural Resources of 17 July 2003 a total of 435 fires affected 11,691 ha forested and 1017 ha non-forested areas. 80 fires of them were reported as new fires. In addition 25 fires occurred that were put out the same day when they started.

Since the beginning of the 2003 fire season a total of 19,314 fires affected 1,641,615 ha forested and 321,569 ha non-forested land under the responsibility of the Ministry of Natural Resources. (For comparison: Last year up to this date 18,277 fires had burnt 550,714 ha forested and 301,805 ha non-forested lands.)

Most fires have been reported in the following regions:

Arkhandelsk-7 fires
Karelia-6
Nizhniy Novgorod-5
Khanty Mansiysk-9
Tomsk-20
Krasnoiarsk-21
Tuva-16
Irkutsk – 56
Buriatia – 76
Chita – 63
Iakutia-25
Khabarovsk-42
Sakhalin-16
Primorje-17
Magadan-15
Kamchatka-21

Large fires were reported in:

Chita region – 33 fires, the biggest is 18,650 ha. 16 of them are contained.
Irkutsk 18 fires, the biggest is 600 ha.
Buriatia -28 fires, the biggest is 1,200 ha.
Krasnojarsk-5 fires, the biggest is 8,000 ha.
Tuva-6 fires, the biggest is 570 ha.
Khabarovsk-13 fires, the biggest is 4,300 ha.
Sakhalin-8 fires, the biggest is 5,300 ha.
Primorje-10 fires, the biggest is 3,000 ha.
Kamchatka-11 fires, the biggest is 1,900 ha.

Through all of Russia 5,569 people, 94 aircraft, 752 bulldozers, tractors and engines have been involved in fire fighting.

Source: Aerial Forest Fire Protection Service of Russia (Avialesookhrana ), prepared at GFMC by Mr. Yevgheny Shuktomov.

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 of administrative regions and a legend is included below.

ru_fire_legend.gif (937 Byte)

Map legend

Administrative boundaries

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

Overview

Latest maps maps showing fire activities of 17 July 2003 (selection)

Respublika Buryatiya Respublika Buryatiya Chitinskaya Oblast

Irkutskaya Oblast Khabarovskiy Kray Khabarovskiy Kray

Khabarovskiy Kray Sakhalinskaya Kray Respublika Sakra

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.

24. November 2017/by GFMCadmin