ESA satellite assesses damage of Norway’s largest fire   This image, recorded by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) sensor on board Envisat, on 15 May 2008 shows the mountainous terrain of southern Norway. Due to the imaging technology of the radar instrument, mountains and valleys can be clearly depicted.   This Envisat image combines two Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) acquisitions – one from 15 May and one from 19 June 2008 (before and after the fire) – in order to detect the extent of damages that occurred in Norway’s largest forest fire. The burnt area is visible as a red cluster in the image centre (top). Other reddish-coloured areas do not represent fire damage but rather changes that occurred between acquisitions.   Hot spots across Southeastern Europe from 21 to 26 August 2007 have been detected with instruments aboard ESA satellites, which have been continuously surveying fires burning across the Earth’s surface for a decade. Working like thermometers in the sky, the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) on ESA’s ERS-2 satellite and the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) on ESA’s Envisat satellite measure thermal infrared radiation to take the temperature of Earth's land surfaces. Release date: 28 February 2012