Gran Canaria wildfires coverage
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- 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
After
NIR/SWIR/VIS view
Before
(watch it as an animation below)
After
(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
