The fire danger indicators currently presented on the Global Early Warning System for Wildland Fires are components of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System and are accessible through the website of the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC). The Global EWS provides 1-7 day forecasted FWI System data based on the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System.
A series of wildfires have been destroying forests and agricultural land near the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Due to concerns about the spread of these fires and the potential dispersion of smoke plumes and radioactive chemicals to nearby inhabited areas, the European Union’s Emergency Response Coordinating Centre (ERCC) requested the activation of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS).
The European Union’s latest Earth observation satellite, Sentinel-3B, was successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Russian Federation on 25 April. The satellite will monitor the Earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere. It will also be able to track disasters and provide up-to-date information to emergency response teams.
On the 16th of August 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected smoke and warm surfaces affecting San Bernardino, California.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected and captured images of numerous fires occurring in the western region of Portugal on the 6th of August.
In mid-July 2016, fires occurred in Siberia, in the tundra-taiga interface of the North West of the region. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on acquired pictures of the smokes on the 19th of July 2016.
According to Bruce Forbes form the University of Lapland “there can be ancient peat deposits near the surface to provide fuel in some places” although the causes of the fire have not been determined yet.
On the 16th of July 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) caught smoke images from space which are related to a fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The red spot on the picture show where the MODIS system detected unusual high temperatures.
The fire was still burning on the 26th of July, according to the National Interagency Fire Fighter.
On the 22nd of July 2016 a fire occurred in southern California, United States. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acquired some images of the phenomenon during and after the burn.
On the 10th of July, a fire occurred in Colorado burning around 13,000 acres of land in the area. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) captured some images from space. This disaster named Hayden Pass Fire may threaten the life of a protected species – the cutthroat trout – according to the conservationists. However, the fire seems not to have caused any deaths, residents in the nearby areas having been displaced when the fire started.
The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters was activated on 14 March 2015 for a forest fire in Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, Chile. The mechanism was activated by the National Emergency Office of the Ministry of Interior and Public Security of Chile (ONEMI) to receive satellite-based emergency information and maps.
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