The Gironde forest fires: the massive devastation of the fires seen from space

The Gironde It had a historic summer of 2022 in terms offires. In a few weeks, the department has almost counted 30,000 hectares of forest It was destroyed by fire.

In order to realize the extent of the damage, nothing is better than increasing the height. Welcome aboard Ranger -2series of Earth observation satellites It belongs to the European Space Station and orbits at an altitude of more than 700 km.

Three giant fires in one month

We chose eight images (the animation visible below), corresponding to eight different days from July 2, 2022 to August 11, 2022, that is, before the start and end of Giant fires in La Teste-de-BuchAnd the Landeras And the San Magni where “Landeras 2”.

We chose not to specify more because cloud cover on other days did not allow a good view of the area.

On July 2, Gironde was in his “normal” state. Red is present throughout the department, with the exception of the Atlantic Ocean, the Arcachon Basin, and the major lakes included in it. Same thing on July 7th and 12th.

On the other hand, as of July 17, we observe in the Landeras sector and La Test de Boch the damage caused by the forest fires that started five days ago. In the coastal resort, there is a “black hole” on the map which corresponds to 7,000 hectares of vegetation that has smothered in smoke. In the town of Sud Gironde, this “black hole” appears more clearly with the destruction of 20,800 hectares.

South Gironde devoured by fire

on photo 1^Verse In August, we see that the map does not develop in La Teste-de-Buch, unlike Landeras. This is normal, the fire at La Teste-de-Buch was fixed a few days before the Landiras.

Then, finally, on the August 11 image, the San Magni fire forms – due to the resumption of fire – and the expansion of the “black hole” left by the Landeras fire. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get a good quality image after August 11th, but we can imagine the map would have been basically the same because on this date, the fire is no longer progressing. It was even announced “fixed” by firefighters on August 14.

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