RLC Forest Fire Locations in Eastern Russia, 1998-1999

Russian forest fire locations from the 1998 and 1999 fire seasons are provided as vector point maps. The data originates from the National Forest Fire Center of Russia archive, collected by the Center of Remote Sensing in Irkutsk. It is derived from satellite imagery and formatted as ArcView shapefiles.

Use Cases

• Historical fire pattern analysis based on point locations of forest fires.
• Validation of satellite-derived fire detection algorithms using ground-truth-like archival data.
• Study of boreal forest fire regimes and climate interactions based on the 1998-1999 time range.
• Geospatial mapping of fire occurrences in Eastern Russia using the provided vector shapefiles.

Strengths

• Provides specific temporal coverage for two fire seasons (1998 and 1999).
• Cross-platform presence on NASA EarthData and Data.gov signals importance and curation.
• Data is in a standard geospatial format (ArcView shapefile) for vector analysis.

Limitations

• Column names and detailed attribute schema are unknown, limiting understanding of data fields.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata (1999 vs. 2026) suggests potential provenance or maintenance issues.
• Sparse metadata; size, row counts, and specific license terms are not clearly documented.

Provenance

Source

National Forest Fire Center of Russia archive, collected by the Center of Remote Sensing, Institute of Solar Terrestrial Physics, Irkutsk, Russia.

Collection Method

Derived from satellite imagery (likely including RADARSAT-1) and processed into vector point maps.

Time Range

1998 to 1999

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:01:30.185032

Geography

Eastern Russia