Fires Threaten Russian Protected Natural Areas

According to satellite data, received on 29th July, the fire situation in Central Russia is still critical. The number of peat and forest fires has increased. The situation is also aggravating in the Urals Federal District. Thus, for example, on the territory of the Sverdlovsk Region remote sensing satellites detected fires in hard-to-reach forested areas - Garinsky and Serovsky. Landsat-5 detailed images clearly show smoke plumes and fire areas, surrounding the town of Severouralsk.

Strict nature reserve "Denezhkin Kamen" is still afire. Mi-8 and Mi-26 helicopters and an Il-76 aircraft of the Emercom of Russia were used to put out the fire in this nature reserve. One may track the geography of fire propagation in different strict nature reserves of Russia using "ООPT - Kosmosnimki" geo-service (http://oopt.kosmosnimki.ru/). This web-mapping resource has multi-temporal satellite images and nature reserves' boundaries available, as well as information about the fire sites' locations, detected during the real-time monitoring from space. Strict nature reserves are being monitored by the NGO Transparent World under the auspices of ScanEx Research & Development Center.