Unprecedented fires broke out in the forested Greater Xing'an Mountains in North-eastern China's Heilongjiang province on June 26, 2010. More than 10,000 firefighters have been battling the blaze.

To accommodate the requests of fire control authorities, CEODE (Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth) carried out fast and reliable RS monitoring and assessment of the fires based on the satellite RS data captured by China's environmental monitoring satellites.

CEODE researchers processed and interpreted the great deal of CCD and Infrared images of the fire sites accessed on June 28, and rapidly monitored and analyzed such factors as distribution of fire sites, burned areas, etc.

According to the great deal of CCD and Infrared images of the fire sites accessed on June 28, CEODE researchers has got the following information concerning the fire sites distribution, burned areas, etc.

Fig.1 showed the three fire sites in the Greater Xing'an Mountains where Heilongjiang bordered Inner Mongolia to the west.

Fire Site 1 was 16km away from A’nan Forest (E'ergu'na zuoqi, Inner Mongolia) with its center locating at 51°42′34″N, 122°21′15″and the area burned reaching 17.8km2.

Fire Site 2 was 10km southwest of Hongfeng Forest (Huma county, Daxing'anling prefecture, Heilongjiang Province) with its center locating at 51°26′4″N,123°15′29″and the area burned reaching 6.75km2.

Fire Site 3 was 12km southeast Yalihe Forest (Huma county, Daxing'anling prefecture, Heilongjiang Province) with its center locating at 51°17′59″N, 123°28′54″E and the area burned reaching 23km2.

As demonstrated in Fig.2 (A CCD image at 30M accessed on June 28), a fierce fire in Site 1 resulted in a large smoke area of 25km from east to west and 8km from north to south.

As illustrated in Fig.3 (A CCD image accessed on June 28), the forest fires in Site 2&3, Site 3 in particular, were even fiercer. Smoke from these two sites mixed together and spread out over a 40km-long and 40km-wide area.

Fig.1

Fig.2