Results of fire monitoring on territory of Azerbaijan in August made public

A press conference was held with the participation of representatives of several government agencies on the fires that occurred in August 2022 on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rovshan Rustamov noted that currently fires cause serious consequences in many countries around the world. Forest fires in particular cause great damage to nature.

“This year has seen the largest forest fires in Europe since 2006, covering a total area of 700,000 hectares. Unfortunately, the fires have not spared our country either. The fires, which have been going on since mid-August, have covered more than 5,300 hectares of land in the northern and northwestern regions. Of these, more than 1,600 hectares are in the forest area,” Rovshan Rustamov said.

The Deputy Minister stressed that in order to prevent fires, cooperation has been established and efforts have been coordinated between the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, and Azercosmos, which provides analytical support of the process with space images. As a result of space monitoring it was possible to assess the scale of the incident and predict its development.

Chairman of the Board of Azerbaijan Space Agency (Azercosmos) Sameddin Asadov presented the results of the fire monitoring conducted via Azersky satellite. He noted that Azersky satellite conducted daily monitoring of fires on the territory of the country, especially in the northern and north-western regions. Based on the analysis of satellite images, areas of fire spread were identified, classification of these areas by forest, shrub, pasture and planted areas was made and their total area was calculated.

“The results of analysis have shown that in August this year fires occurred on a total area of 5,311 hectares, including 3,711 hectares in Shabran, 800 – in Siyazan, 555 – in Guba, 164 – in Shamakhy, 71 – in Khachmaz, 6 – in Sheki and 4 – in Gabala. About 30% of the area covered by the fire was in forests,” Sameddin Asadov stressed.

Then Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Etibar Mirzayev spoke about the work done to extinguish the fires, and Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Firdovsi Aliyev made a statement on the damage caused to nature.

In conclusion, the journalists’ questions were answered.