02/03/2020 EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary Island & EMSR430 ... · EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary...
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02/03/2020 EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary Island & EMSR430 Forest fire in Santa Ursula, Tenerife EMS INFORMATION BULLETIN Nr 131 THE COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE MONITORS IMPACT OF FOREST FIRES IN SPAIN A weather phenomenon known as a “calima”, characterised by strong and warm easterly winds carrying dust form the Sahara, fuelled forest fires on the Canary Islands last week. The calima episode hit Spain’s Canary Islands between 22 and 24 February. The calima, which in Tenerife caused wind speeds to reach 160 km/h, caused many problems to maritime traffic and the cancellation of over 230 flights. During the storm, record temperatures for the period (+33°C) were recorded at Aldea de San Nicolás, Gran Canaria. Strong winds and the poor visibility, meant that aerial firefighting assets were not available, so the fire control operations became long and complex. In Tasarte, on the Gran Canaria island, 250 people were evacuated and numerous roads were closed following a forest fire. A similar situation occurred in Tenerife, where in the area of Santa Ursula, around a thousand people were evacuated and the island's main motorway was closed, as a result of a wildfire at the interface between urban and natural areas. On 24 February, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated by the Centro de Coordinacion Operativa (CECOP) of the Dirección General de Protección Civil y Emergencias (Spanish Civil Protection Directorate), on behalf of the Canary Island’s autonomous government, to map the burnt areas of Tasarte (EMSR428) and Santa Ursula (EMSR430). For each of the wildfires, one Area of Interest (AoI) was defined. On 25 February, the delineation product, based on Pléiades and Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery acquired on the same day, was published for the area of Tasarte. The product shows a burnt area of 959.6 ha (9.6 km 2 ) and 8 active flames. Using the same satellite imagery, on the same day a delineation product for the area of Santa Ursula was published. The delineation product for this AoI shows a total burnt area of 26 ha (0.26 km 2 ) and 20 active flames,and the number of residents potentially affected by the wildfire as 18,959. On the images acquired on the next day, 26 February, no active flames were detected. It was therefore decided to produce the final grading products, in order to assess the extent of the damage caused by the fires.
Transcript of 02/03/2020 EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary Island & EMSR430 ... · EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary...
02/03/2020
EMSR428 Forest fire in Canary Island & EMSR430 Forest fire in Santa Ursula, Tenerife
EMS INFORMATION BULLETIN Nr 131
THE COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE
MONITORS IMPACT OF FOREST FIRES IN SPAIN
A weather phenomenon known as a “calima”, characterised by strong and warm easterly winds carrying dust form the Sahara, fuelled forest fires on the Canary Islands last week. The calima episode hit Spain’s Canary Islands between 22 and 24 February.
The calima, which in Tenerife caused wind speeds to reach 160 km/h, caused many problems to maritime traffic and the cancellation of over 230 flights. During the storm, record temperatures for the period (+33°C) were recorded at Aldea de San Nicolás, Gran Canaria.
Strong winds and the poor visibility, meant that aerial firefighting assets were not available, so the fire control operations became long and complex. In Tasarte, on the Gran Canaria island, 250 people were evacuated and numerous roads were closed following a forest fire. A similar situation occurred in Tenerife, where in the area of Santa Ursula, around a thousand people were evacuated and the island's main motorway was closed, as a result of a wildfire at the interface between urban and natural areas.
On 24 February, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated by the Centro de
Coordinacion Operativa (CECOP) of the Dirección General de Protección Civil y Emergencias (Spanish
Civil Protection Directorate), on behalf of the Canary Island’s autonomous government, to map the
burnt areas of Tasarte (EMSR428) and Santa Ursula (EMSR430).
For each of the wildfires, one Area of Interest (AoI) was defined. On 25 February, the delineation
product, based on Pléiades and Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery acquired on the same day, was published
for the area of Tasarte. The product shows a burnt area of 959.6 ha (9.6 km2) and 8 active flames. Using
the same satellite imagery, on the same day a delineation product for the area of Santa Ursula was
published. The delineation product for this AoI shows a total burnt area of 26 ha (0.26 km2) and 20
active flames,and the number of residents potentially affected by the wildfire as 18,959.
On the images acquired on the next day, 26 February, no active flames were detected. It was therefore
decided to produce the final grading products, in order to assess the extent of the damage caused by the
fires.
For the area of Santa Ursula, the grading product was published on 26 February using optical imagery
acquired by GeoEye satellite respectively on 26 February. The product shows that, within the burnt area
(28.3 ha), 4 settlements were destroyed, 11 damaged and 57 possibly damaged.
The grading product for the area of Tasarte was published on 27 February. This product, based on
Pléiades imagery acquired on 26 February, shows that 99% of the burnt area is classified as “Destroyed”
land use (947.2 ha) and 1% as “damaged” land use (9.5 ha).
In total four products were produced for these two activations.
The maps and vector data are available for viewing and download on the Copernicus EMS Website: https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EMSR428/ and https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EMSR430/ .
For updates on our activations, follow Copernicus EMS on Twitter.
Learn more about the Copernicus Programme and its Emergency Management Service online.
The grading map of the area around Tasarte (Canary Islands, Spain), showing 956.7 ha (9.57 km2) of burnt area at the time of
satellite imagery acquisition (Copernicus EMS © 2020 EU, [EMSR 428: Tasarte Canary Islands (Spain): Grading Overview map
01]).
The grading map of the area around Santa Ursula (Canary Islands, Spain), showing 72 total affected residential buildings at the
time of satellite imagery acquisition (Copernicus EMS © 2020 EU, [EMSR 430: Santa Ursula Canary Islands (Spain): Grading
Overview map 01]).
For more information contact [email protected] Follow our Twitter feed @CopernicusEMS where maps and vector data are posted automatically in near real-time
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE (EMS)
Copernicus is the European Union Earth Observation and Monitoring Programme.
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) uses satellite imagery and other geospatial data to provide free of charge mapping service in cases of large natural disasters, human-made emergency situations and humanitarian crises throughout the world. The maps are produced in two temporal modes:
● Rapid Mapping consists of the provision of geospatial information in support of emergency management activities immediately following a disaster. Different types of maps are produced:
the Reference product to ascertain the situation before the event, the First Estimate product and the Delineation product to assess the geographical extent of the event with respectively a rough or detailed assessment, or the Grading product to evaluate the magnitude and impact of the damage resulting from the event.
● Risk & Recovery Mapping consists of the provision of geospatial information in support of disaster management activities that are not related to immediate emergency response but rather to pre-disaster risk assessment or post-disaster recovery monitoring. This applies to activities dealing with prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and recovery phases.
The EMS can be triggered only by or through an Authorised User (AU). Authorised Users include the National Focal Points (NFPs) of the EU Member States and countries participating in the Copernicus programme, as well as European Commission services and the European External Action Service (EEAS), including the EU Delegations. Beneficiary end users of EMS include entities and organisations at regional, national, European and international level actors in the field of civil protection and humanitarian aid.
Interested Users may trigger the service by sending a Service Request Form (SRF) directly to the European Response Coordination Centre (ERCC): [email protected].
The Copernicus EMS also provides Forest Fire (EFFIS), Floods (EFAS) and Drought (EDO) Early Warning products for Europe as well as at global level.
The Copernicus programme
Copernicus, the European Earth Observation and Monitoring Programme, is served by dedicated satellites (the family of Copernicus Sentinels) and a set of Contributing Missions (additional satellites from existing commercial and national agencies). Since the launch of Sentinel-1A in 2014, the European Union set in motion a process to place a constellation of almost 20 more satellites in orbit before 2030. Today, seven fully operational Sentinel satellites (Sentinel-1A and -B, Sentinel-2A and -B, Sentinel-3A and -B and Sentinel-5P) are in orbit to continually provide operational satellite information. This satellite data is complemented by and validated with in situ data.
Six Copernicus Services transform the full, free and open data into value-added information by processing and analysing the data to transform them into services and products such as informative maps, data sets and reports.
These six services are:
● The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service ● The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service ● The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service ● The Copernicus Climate Change Service ● The Copernicus Emergency Management Service
● The Copernicus Security Service
Copernicus is coordinated and managed by DG GROW in the European Commission. It is implemented in partnership with the EU Member States, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), EU Agencies and Mercator Ocean. The European Commission Joint Research Centre offers the technical support of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service whilst the Emergency Response Coordination Centre of DG ECHO assists civil protection actors with the handling of the EMS mapping requests on a 24/7 basis.
For more information
Copernicus website: copernicus.eu
Copernicus Emergency Management Service website: emergency.copernicus.eu
On Twitter @CopernicusEMS
