Europe’s free satellite service just made it easier to track wildfires

欧洲免费卫星服务现已简化野火追踪

The wildfires afflicting communities across the world can now be tracked more easily by anyone using Europe’s free and open satellite imagery service—all thanks to a wildfire visualization script originating from nearly a decade ago. 全球各地的社区正饱受野火困扰，而现在，任何人都可以通过欧洲的免费开放卫星影像服务更轻松地追踪这些火情——这都要归功于一个源自近十年前的野火可视化脚本。

The Copernicus Browser provides free access to the latest satellite imagery taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites for the European Union’s Earth observation program. The three satellites of the Sentinel-2 mission have proven especially useful for wildfire monitoring by providing multi-spectral imaging at resolutions as granular as 10 meters in visible light and near-infrared bands—and the Copernicus Browser previously offered 10 default visualization layers using different combinations of spectral bands. Copernicus Browser 为欧盟地球观测计划提供由欧洲航天局“哨兵”（Sentinel）卫星拍摄的最新卫星影像的免费访问权限。事实证明，Sentinel-2 任务的三颗卫星在野火监测方面尤为有用，它们能提供可见光和近红外波段下分辨率高达 10 米的多光谱成像。此前，Copernicus Browser 已经提供了 10 个使用不同光谱波段组合的默认可视化图层。

Now Copernicus Browser has also added a straightforward “wildfires” visualization layer for Sentinel-2 imagery that went live on August 4. Anyone clicking on this layer while looking at a wildfire location can see active fires in white or yellow, burning vegetation in red, and burned landscapes in dark brown or black. 现在，Copernicus Browser 还为 Sentinel-2 影像增加了一个直观的“野火”（wildfires）可视化图层，该功能已于 8 月 4 日上线。当用户查看野火发生地并点击该图层时，可以看到以白色或黄色显示的活跃火点、以红色显示的燃烧植被，以及以深褐色或黑色显示的过火地表。

That helpful wildfire visualization enhancement comes from a script written in JavaScript by remote sensing expert Pierre Markuse. As explained by Geovisualization, Markuse’s script combines the red visible light band, the narrow near-infrared band to highlight the differences between healthy and burned vegetation, and the short-wave infrared 2 band to reveal burned landscape by revealing moisture levels in the soil. 这一实用的野火可视化增强功能源自遥感专家 Pierre Markuse 用 JavaScript 编写的一个脚本。据 Geovisualization 解释，Markuse 的脚本结合了红色可见光波段、用于突出健康植被与受损植被差异的窄带近红外波段，以及通过揭示土壤水分含量来识别过火地表的短波红外 2 波段。

Users could previously add this script manually to Copernicus Browser sessions by copying and pasting it using the custom visualization option under the default layers. But Simon Proud, mission scientist for Sentinel-2 at the European Space Agency, pushed to get the script integrated into Copernicus Browser as a default option. He announced that the integration had finally happened in a Discord channel on a server run by the investigative journalism group Bellingcat. 此前，用户可以通过在默认图层下的自定义可视化选项中复制粘贴代码，手动将此脚本添加到 Copernicus Browser 会话中。但欧洲航天局 Sentinel-2 任务科学家 Simon Proud 推动了该脚本的集成，使其成为 Copernicus Browser 的默认选项。他在调查新闻机构 Bellingcat 运营的 Discord 服务器频道中宣布，这一集成工作现已完成。

There are other existing and emerging satellite constellations capable of detecting and monitoring wildfires and wildfire smoke. NASA’s FIRMS tool provides free access to a global map of fires detected by NASA satellite sensors and is rapidly updated within several hours—although such NASA satellite imagery is only available in coarser resolutions down to 250 meters. 目前还有其他现有的和新兴的卫星星座能够探测和监测野火及野火烟雾。NASA 的 FIRMS 工具提供由 NASA 卫星传感器探测到的全球火情地图的免费访问权限，并能在数小时内快速更新——尽管此类 NASA 卫星影像的分辨率较低，仅为 250 米。

By comparison, the Sentinel 2 satellite imagery is updated every few days but provides much higher resolution imagery in certain bands down to a 10-meter spatial resolution. That makes it arguably the best free and publicly available tool for delivering higher-resolution satellite imagery of everything from wildfires to war zones. 相比之下，Sentinel-2 卫星影像虽然每隔几天更新一次，但在特定波段下能提供高达 10 米空间分辨率的更高清影像。这使其成为目前公认的、可免费获取的、用于提供从野火到战区等各类高分辨率卫星影像的最佳工具。

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of wildfires to keep an eye on across the world as climate change exacerbates traditional wildfire seasons. Much of Washington and Oregon is experiencing wildfires and smoke, Canada’s wildfire season is on track to be one of the country’s worst, and firefighters continue to battle blazes in France and Spain, where hundreds of thousands of people have evacuated during a record-breaking wildfire season. 遗憾的是，随着气候变化加剧了传统的野火季节，全球范围内需要关注的野火层出不穷。华盛顿州和俄勒冈州的大部分地区正遭受野火和烟雾的侵袭，加拿大的野火季节正成为该国有史以来最严重的季节之一，而法国和西班牙的消防员仍在与大火搏斗，在这一破纪录的野火季节中，已有数十万人被迫撤离。