Satellite images of vegetation fires in Sumatra, Indonesia |
Vegetation fires, caused by various human activities, are a yearly occurrence on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The worst fires in the region in recent history occurred during an extraordinarily strong El-Nino phenomenon in 1997-1998. Vast tracts of forest, primarily in Sumatra and Kalimantan, were destroyed by fire, and a pall of haze shrouded a large part of Southeast Asia for months. The total economic losses to the region from the fires and resulting haze was estimated to be US$9.3 billion. In August 2005, smoke from fires in Sumatra caused the worst haze conditions in Malaysia since 1997. On these pages, high-resolution satellite images of the August 2005 fires in Sumatra are displayed. All the images were acquired and processed by CRISP. Note on interpreting the colour of satellite images: |
SPOT images (page 1) - SPOT images (page 2) - IKONOS satellite images
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Map of the region |
8 Aug 2005, 44 km X 44 km (overview) |
| The following images include several higher resolution views of the image above. Comparisons are made with past images of the same area. | |
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20 Mar 2004, 12 km X 12 km
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8 Aug 2005, 12 km X 12 km
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| More than half of the area of the scene (above right) has burnt or is burning. Dense forest areas appear as dark red patches with a rough texture, while the lighter red or pink patches are probably secondary forest or scrub. Note that forest areas are burning in the centre right of the image on Aug 8. | |
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17 Jun 2005, 12 km X 12 km
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8 Aug 2005, 12 km X 12 km
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| Forest covers most of the upper area
of the above two scenes. Note the numerous pink trails in the forest;
evidence of organized human activity. Forest fires often occur in areas
where these trails have appeared earlier. Burnt areas show up as greyish-green
patches. Smoke can be seen rising from fires at the edges of these burnt
patches in the Aug 8 image, which means that the burnt areas are expanding.
Some of the burnt areas have grown significantly, within a time period
of less than two months between the two images. |
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17 Jun 2005, 12 km X 12 km
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8 Aug 2005, 12 km X 12 km
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| The gridded area on the left half of both scenes is a plantation, probably oil palm. A large segment in the upper half of the plantation had burnt in the period between June and August. In the lower right of the image, outside the plantation, it is mainly secondary forest or scrub that is burning. | |
Catalog browse images (SPOT satellites)
| 4 Aug 2005 | 8 Aug 2005 | 9 Aug 2005 | 13 Aug 2005 | 22 Aug 2005 |