Images
April 29, 2025 - Early Start to Russia's Far East Fire Season
Tweet
Russia’s 2025 wildfire season is off to an early and ferocious start, with blazes reported in the opening days of March.
According to an article by The Insider published on March 21, Primorsky Krai, in the country’s Far East, had reported ten or more wildfires daily since March 1 and more than 200 fires had ignited in the Kaliningrad Region since the first of the year. On April 10, Russia’s Aerial Forest Protection Service was said to have reported that 52 wildfires covering more than 41,675 hectares were active across the country. Authorities had already declared the official start of wildfire season in 64 regions of Russia, according to media reports.
On April 7, fires were so numerous and intense that the government declared a State of Emergency in Zabaykalsky Krai, a region in Russia’s Far East, where 44 wildfires were said to have burnt more than 31,000 hectares at that time. The situation has continued to worsen, with reports of several structures destroyed and the closure of Amur Federal Highway near Chita due to encroaching fire. On April 28, the Moscow Times reported that the Zabaykalsky Krai accounted for 98 percent of the total area of wildfires in Russia. Their report continued to say, “State media reported that current fires cover an area more than 10 times the area burned at the same time last year and show no signs of slowing.”
On April 24, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of a massive collection of wildfires burning in Zabaykalsky Krai. There are many dozens of red “hot spots”, each indicating active fire, clustered in the extremely dry, brown forests. A thick and wide plume of smoke sweeps across parts of Russia, China, and the Korean Peninsula to reach the Sea of Japan (East Sea)—a distance of more than 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers). The individual fires can be seen more easily in the higher resolution (500 m) image.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 4/25/2025
Resolutions:
1km (1.1 MB), 500m (3.6 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Russia’s 2025 wildfire season is off to an early and ferocious start, with blazes reported in the opening days of March.
According to an article by The Insider published on March 21, Primorsky Krai, in the country’s Far East, had reported ten or more wildfires daily since March 1 and more than 200 fires had ignited in the Kaliningrad Region since the first of the year. On April 10, Russia’s Aerial Forest Protection Service was said to have reported that 52 wildfires covering more than 41,675 hectares were active across the country. Authorities had already declared the official start of wildfire season in 64 regions of Russia, according to media reports.
On April 7, fires were so numerous and intense that the government declared a State of Emergency in Zabaykalsky Krai, a region in Russia’s Far East, where 44 wildfires were said to have burnt more than 31,000 hectares at that time. The situation has continued to worsen, with reports of several structures destroyed and the closure of Amur Federal Highway near Chita due to encroaching fire. On April 28, the Moscow Times reported that the Zabaykalsky Krai accounted for 98 percent of the total area of wildfires in Russia. Their report continued to say, “State media reported that current fires cover an area more than 10 times the area burned at the same time last year and show no signs of slowing.”
On April 24, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of a massive collection of wildfires burning in Zabaykalsky Krai. There are many dozens of red “hot spots”, each indicating active fire, clustered in the extremely dry, brown forests. A thick and wide plume of smoke sweeps across parts of Russia, China, and the Korean Peninsula to reach the Sea of Japan (East Sea)—a distance of more than 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers). The individual fires can be seen more easily in the higher resolution (500 m) image.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 4/25/2025
Resolutions:
1km (1.1 MB), 500m (3.6 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
