In July 2019, satellites observed thick plumes of smoke rising from dozens of large wildfires in north-central Russia. The fires were located in a remote part of Krasnoyarsk Krai, north of the Angara River and Boguchany.
This natural-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on July 12, 2019.
The MODIS sensor began to detected large numbers of active fires in this area on June 28, 2019, with several isolated fires growing and multiplying over the following days.
According to reporting from the TASS News Agency, fires in Krasnoyarsk were actively burning on more than 64,000 hectares (160,000 acres) as of July 10.
Smoke from the fires has swirled over Krasnoyarsk, with a large plume drifting north toward the European Arctic and Svalbard during the first week of July.
References & Resources
- Greenpeace (2019, May 27) Mapped: Russiaâs devastating wildfires. Accessed July 12, 2019.
- NOAA (2019, July 5) Dozens of Wildfires Burn Across Eastern Russia. Accessed July 12, 2019.
- TASS News Agency (2019, July 4) More than 110,000 hectares of forests on fire in Krasnoyarsk Region. Accessed July 12, 2019.
- TASS News Agency (2019, July 10) Wildfires sweep through 128,000 hectares in Russian regions. Accessed July 12, 2019.
- TASS News Agency (2019, July 8) Massive blazes scorch 129,500 hectares of woodland across Siberia, Trans-Baikal Region. Accessed July 12, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Caption by Adam Voiland.
