ESA - Observing the Earth - Securing Our Environment - Spanish forest fire aftermath surveyed by Envisat

About securing our environment

Space & Environment Intelligence

Global Monitoring for Environment & Security

Overview

International treaties implementation

Overview Wetlands convention Combat Desertification convention Kyoto Protocol

Safeguarding World Heritage sites

Overview Gorilla habitats

Space & Public Safety

Civil protection assistance

Overview Fire mapping Earthquake rescue support Flood monitoring Pollution tracking

Humanitarian aid support

Overview

Epidemiology understanding

Overview

About Observing the Earth

How does Earth Observation work?How to get Earth observation data Integrating Earth Observation in your job Earth Observation users speak

Opportunities with us

Education & training International cooperation Milestones & announcements EO conferences organised by ESA

Multimedia

Image Gallery Video Gallery Online resources RSS feeds

Services

Calendar

Article Images

Spanish forest fire aftermath surveyed by Envisat

4 August 2005

Back to article

A fireman fights a raging forest fire by the village of Selas in Guadalajara, Selas, 19 July 2005. Helicopters and planes continued to water-bomb hot spots of a massive fire that killed 11 volunteer firefighters and destroyed vast tracts of pine forest in central Spain.

Credits: AFP PHOTO/Pedro ARMESTRE

Back to article

A large forest fire that killed 11 people, took place in Guadalajara, Spain from the 16 to 19 July 2005. An estimation of burnt area was performed using the MERIS Full Resolution image acquired on the 24th of July 2005. A Matched Filtering analysis was applied on the layer stack obtained from the thirteen reflectance bands plus the Bottom of Atmosphere Vegetation Index (BOAVI) and Top of Atmosphere Vegetation Index (TOAVI) bands.

Credits: ESA/Laboratorio de Teledetección of INIA

Back to article

The ‘endmember’ was drawn on the image, on areas that could be visually classified as very burnt. The file obtained from the Matched Filtering analysis was reclassified by modifying the histogram and pixels with values over 0.3 were considered burnt. The resulting perimeter can be seen here. The burnt area is 11313 hectares.

Credits: ESA/Laboratorio de Teledetección of INIA

Back to article

View of the forest devastated after a fire in Mazarete, near Guadalajara, 19 July 2005. Helicopters and planes continued to water-bomb hot spots of a massive fire that killed 11 volunteer firefighters and destroyed vast tracts of pine forest in central Spain.

Credits: AFP PHOTO/Pedro ARMESTRE

Back to article

Download:

HI-RES JPG (Size: 876 kb)

ESA's ten-instrument Envisat environmental satellite has been observing the Earth for more than three years. Picture by EADS Astrium.

Credits: EADS Astrium