Signatures of Wildfires Caused by Hostilities Using the Results of Space Photography

Abstract

There are no scientific works to present date, which would reveal the issue of separating fires from atypical causes from others caused by economic and recreational activities, using satellite infrared imaging. The purpose of this study is to establish the special deciphering signatures of atypical fires. Deciphering fires is their classification according to a number of characteristics: area, power, contour configuration, etc. For this research we used the data from FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) supplied by NASA, USA. Fire monitoring was daily carried out, starting in April 2020 when intense forest fires began in Ukraine, including the period of russian aggression, until September 2022. There are compared the data from space imagery in the infrared spectrum, visible (mid-resolution daytime space images) and news in mass media. For each fire there are calculated the area using the extreme points of the contour and the total power of the hot spots that fell into this contour. The data were received twice a day for each fly-around of the satellites. A number of criteria were identified which indicate the military origin of fires. These are fires in built-up areas, the irregular shape of fires contours, coverage of territories with different types of land use, too powerful ignitions and fires at an atypical time for the area. We can consider with a high probability that fires which have economic and recreational origin are arisen at the places of previous fires and which spread gradually over several days, and fires of low and medium power outside the collision zone. For the first time, the analysis of fires based on the results of space photography during the military conflict was performed and decipherable signs of fires from combat operations were identified. There are the conclusion that the results of this study may be needed to determine the amount of damage caused by russian aggression.