Project overview

Wildland fires have many serious negative impacts on human safety, health, regional economies and global climate change. In particular, peat and forest fires in Western Russia can cause transportation of toxic fine particles to EU that are a serious health risk for the population.

An overarching objective of the project is to develop an Integrated Monitoring and Modelling System (IS) for wildland fires. The IS is designed

(i) to detect major wildland, such as peat and forest, fires, using satellite remote sensing,

(ii) to model both the spread of the fires in the terrain and the atmospheric dispersion of the fire plumes in the atmosphere, and

(iii) to detect the fire plumes, and to find out the source areas using a combination of ground-based air quality measurements and a long-range transport modelling system.

The project has also participated in organization of controlled forest fire dispersion measurement campaign in the vicinity of the national supersite SMEAR2.