May 4, 2023 - Large Wildfires and Burn Scars in Russia

Fires
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The 2023 Russia fire season has started with a roar, with fire emerging
along with the greening grasses in several areas of the country. The
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s
Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a swath of large
wildfires centered in Omsk Oblast on April 28. The fires also extended
west into Tyumen Oblast and east into Novosibirsk Oblast.

Each red “hot spot” marks actively burning fire. In several locations,
active fire rings the edges of dark brown or black burn scars. Burn
scars—areas that have already been burnt by fire—are dark in color
because the vegetation and soil has been charred, leaving little or no
fuel that can sustain a fire. The rings of hot spots surrounding the
scar are caused as the wildfire expands, moving forward into fresh
fuel.

Several of the burn scars are extremely large. For example, the area of
the figure-eight-shaped, least smokey burn scar near the center of the
image measures roughly 2,400 square kilometers using the measurement
tools available in NASA Worldview. That’s more than half the area of
the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The complicated conflagration of burn
scars, active fire, and copious smoke to the west of the measured area
appears to be quite a bit larger, perhaps double the size.

According to Global Forest Watch, the peak fire season in Russia begins
in early May and continues for about 18 weeks. Scattered hot spots,
marking small and early fires, began to appear in this region by April
1, according to a review of MODIS Aqua images available in NASA
Worldview. The fires visible in this image were still active as of May
4.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 4/29/2023
Resolutions: 1km (255.7 KB), 500m (853.4 KB), 250m (2.5 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-05-04

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