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). Under the Copernicus EMS activation, satellites have mapped the actively burning fires, tracked the transport of smoke from fires, and assessed the damaged areas. These maps provide useful information for fire management and help authorities respond to the consequences of the wildfire.
Based on data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, using a wide-swath multispectral sensor that can...
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