Gran Canaria wildfires coverage

pavelneuman

Gran Canaria Wildfires

Article was updated with satellite imagery by Pierre Markuse

19 August 2019 - About 8,000 people have been evacuated from Gran Canaria, as wildfires rip through the island. According to the reports, the fires which started on Saturday, has burned more than 3,400 hectares (8,400 acres) of land, and were described as unstoppable.

Ángel Víctor Torres, the head of the Canary Islands government, described the situation as an environmental disaster, and said it had been “neither contained nor controlled”.

Ten planes and helicopters, as well as about 700 firefighters on the ground including 200 from the military, were deployed, according to this BBC report.

A "before/after" satellite imagery processed by Pierre Markuse reveals the extent of the wildfires.

The enhanced natural colors

Before

photo: Pierre Markuse; desc: Before the Wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain - August 24th, 2018; licence:cc;

After

photo: Pierre Markuse; desc: Wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain - August 19th, 2019; licence:cc;

photo: Pierre Markuse; desc: Wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain - August 19th, 2019 + IR overlay; licence:cc;

NIR/SWIR/VIS view

Before

photo: Pierre Markuse; desc: Before/After comparison Wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain - August 24th, 2018 - NIR/SWIR/VIS view; licence:cc;

(watch it as an animation below)

After

photo: Pierre Markuse; desc: Before/After comparison Wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain - August 19th, 2019 - NIR/SWIR/VIS view; licence:cc;

(watch it as an animation below)

Both Before/After comparison image sets contain modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2019], and were processed by Pierre Markuse. You can download the hi-res images from Pierre's Flickr account.

Firefighters fighting the wildfires

https://www.windy.com/annotation/5d5a9641a0f69f0019071b7e