The Largest Hyrkan Forests Wildfire with Remote Sensing eyes

Sometimes mythic mist, sometimes smoke. 25-50 million years old Hyrkan forests under fire. (48°39'46.362"E 38°42'37.235"N (WGS84 UTM Zone 39N)) Everybody prays for Amazon Rainforest. Me also. Please pray and struggle for Hyrkan also. On 20th August 2019 accrued fire nearly on the same area when it was 5 years ago. That time was lost 196 ha forest area.

USGS & NASA"s Landsat

The satellite images acquired by Landsat 8 shows ongoing fire spots due to SWIR band combination (short wave infrared penetrates smoke, dust, aerosols and gives an opportunity to see through the naked fire). We can see both wildfires at different times are nearly in the same area and visual inspection through satellite images show that burnt areas are mostly was the forest, not bushes and dry grasses. 21st August 2019 data shows the ongoing area of the burning forest and it was 112 ha but it is not a final result. Let's see what shows Sentinel images.

ESA's Sentinel-2

Other hands, data from Sentinel-2B satellite gives the opportunity to calculate final burnt area and make a quick visual inspection. Seems it is a record wildfire area for its history, 215 ha. It is 275 times Baku Olympic football field size (0.78 ha). But for some reason, the government and news agencies always talks about some 10 burnt hectares. The Sentinel-2B image is acquired on 22nd August 2019, at 11:49 AM UTC +4 Thursday, with local Baku time. The image still spots fire in the south-east edge (false color (urban) combination). I made a call to the relevant Ministry of Emergency Situation and State Fire Protection Service and informed them about that but got some unpleasant funny conversation. However, go on.

Misalignment of wildfire areas

As I mentioned above, none of government and news agencies figures matching to real wildfire areas. The funniest thing that, the mostly stereotyped figure is "10 ha", the text is "the burnt area is dry meadow and grasses, bushes, stumps". (new 2019, news 2014). The images from GoogleEarth is the before and after comparison of the wildfire near village Vamazgon, Lerik (11th August 2014 from https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov we can check all wildfire points all over the world). Calculation from Landsat gives us 165 ha burnt area. but the final deforested area is 120 ha.

ESA's Sentinel-2 timelapse of the wildfire areas, Lankaran, Tangivan and Yardimly, Lazir

Sentinel Hub EO Browser is one best of an online platform for a complete archive of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, Sentinel-5P, ESA"s archive of Landsat 5, 7 and 8, global coverage of Landsat 8, Envisat Meris, Proba-V and MODIS and GIBS products in one place. You can search, make a quick visual analyze, create timelapse, quick bands combination test and download any portion of the images by combination and bands.

These animations show before and after the wildfire timelapse near Lazir and Tangivan. The upper animation spots two wildfires in the same area at a different time (5th July 2018, and 22nd August 2019) near to village Lazir (fire is out of Hyrkan National Park). The animation on the left is representing the Tangivan wildfire, at Hyrkan National Park. Barely is seen that first started deforestation on these areas on the ridges of the slops. I predict this is an ecocrime to hide the trace of killing the trees and to get a lump of free wood coal. We need an investigation at the fire area to confirm that. Anyhow, the human is still the main factor of these fires. The photos from the fire area already spot the evidence (scattered area and big stumps). I hope the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic and Azercosmos at least will do something important in this way.

Caspian Hyrcanian Mixed Forests ecoregion

Caspian Hyrcanian Mixed Forests ecoregion is 25-50 million years old (Amazon is about 55 million, but some scientists claim Hyrkan is older than Amazon). The region is a shelter for many relicts and endemic plant and animal species. Hyrkan National Park was established in an area in Lankaran Region and Astara Region administrative districts on 9th February 2004, on the basis of the former "Hyrkan State Reserve" (40,358 ha). Azerbaijan and Iran had plan establishing a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Talysh and Alborz Mountains through the protection of a new area of 800 km² on the Iranian side, making it into a cross-border protected area of about 1,600 km². This was a vitally important point for leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) conservation, but the plans have been endorsed incomplete. This year 2019, The UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed 129,484.74 ha Iran's Hyrcanian forests on the organization's World Heritage List during its 43rd session in Baku on July 5. Unfortunately, Azerbaijan Hyrkan is not included to World Heritage list. But we are losing the forest fire by fire, deforestation by deforestation, step by step, day by day. We are country exporting gas to Europe, but still, a lot of villages on this Talysh mountains are not supplied with gas. The logical conclusion that the energy supply for locals is still timber of Hyrkan forests.

From Azerbaijan side, Azerbaijan was inscribed Historic Centre of Sheki with the Khan"s Palace. But Hyrkan State Reservation is one of 9 sites of Azerbaijan"s Tentative List since 1998. What we are waiting for?! This sounds like an irony of Nature, after couple days of inscription the Shaki, the oldest oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) tree"s branch in front of Palace which is planted on 1530 accidentally fell above people around, killed one person, wounded 19 more. Do plants start to punish people for wrong choices?

Hyrkan National Park. Photo by Rustam Maharramov