Monitoring forest fires in Eastern Siberia from space

Intensive exploitation of Siberian forest resources requires to increase the level of their protection. In Russia, forests annually disturbed by fire make up about 6% of the total forest area, whereas they account for hundredth or even thousandth of per cent in the West European countries and Canada. Devastating forest fires associated with long draughts have become very common over recent decades in some parts of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Fires burning under these conditions disturb hundreds of thousands hectares of forest lands, and their detrimental effects, including economic damage, are hard to overestimate. This hard situation is attributed to that fire protection is far behind forest use. Another reason is the lack of well-developed scientific approaches to the problem. Current forest fire monitoring technologies have many weaknesses. Methods of fire danger rating and prediction and also techniques of forest fire damage appraisal need to be improved.