Fire, Smoke and Haze

VADS CORNER — Wildfire · Forest Fire · Smoke · Global Fire Events
Online since 22 September 1997 · Comprehensively revised 10 September 2026 · Last updated 10 September 2026

This site was set up during the 1997 haze in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the surrounding region, caused by forest and peatland fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. It is an extension of the Haze page (1997). It subsequently expanded to cover wildland fire events in the United States, Australia, Russia, Canada, Greece, Brazil and elsewhere. The page first went up on 22 September 1997 and has been updated at intervals ever since.

Current situation — where to look first

United States wildland fires

• National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) FIXED — authoritative source for US wildland fire statistics, situation reports, and historical data.
  • National Fire News FIXED — current wildland fire update. Old path: nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm.
  • National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook FIXED
  • Fire Maps FIXED
  • Geographic Area Coordination Center (GACC) map — links to all regional GACCs for regional fire information.
  • Wildfire statistics NEW — annual acreage, fires by year, agency cost summaries back to 1983.
• InciWeb — Incident Information System FIXED — current information on all active wildfire incidents across North America. Old URL: inciweb.nwcg.gov.
• USDA Forest Service — Fire and Aviation Management FIXED — replaces the old fs.fed.us/fire/ path; USDA rebranded from fs.fed.us to fs.usda.gov.
• AirNow — real-time air quality index across the United States, including smoke advisories during fire events.
• US EPA — Wildfires NEW — health guidance, air quality information, and indoor protection advice during wildfire smoke events.
• National Weather Service — Fire Weather NEW — red flag warnings, fire weather outlooks by region.
• Wildland Fire Assessment System (WFAS) — fuel moisture, drought index and fire danger maps; USDA Forest Service.

Global fire monitoring — start here

• NASA FIRMS — Fire Information for Resource Management System NEW — near-real-time active fire and thermal anomaly data from MODIS and VIIRS. The clearest single answer to questions about fire location and source. Free, global, updated multiple times daily.
• NASA Earth Observatory — Fires FIXED
• Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) FIXED — current and recent significant global fire events. A must-see. University of Freiburg. (Thanks to John D Anderson.)
• Global Forest Watch — Fires NEW
• Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) NEW — smoke aerosol forecasts, fire radiative power, and daily global fire bulletins.
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  • Geostationary Satellite Operations — NESDIS FIXED — replaces the old goes.noaa.gov site.

Search the news

• Google News — wildfire NEW
• BBC News — search for “wild fires” FIXED
• The Guardian — Wildfires NEW

U.S. wildland fire resources

• National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC)
• InciWeb — current incident status, maps, news releases, and evacuation information for active fires.
• USDA Forest Service — Fire and Aviation Management
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — Wildfire FIXED
• AirNow — Fires and Your Health NEW
• Firewise USA — NFPA FIXED — replaces old firewise.org. NFPA programme for community wildfire preparedness.
• Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) NEW — joint USGS and USFS; satellite-derived burn severity for all fires above 400 ha since 1984.

Western states

• Montana Department of Natural Resources — Fire FIXED — replaces old mt.gov/fire.aspx.
• Idaho Department of Lands — Bureau of Fire FIXED — replaces old idahofireinfo.com.
• CAL FIRE — California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection NEW
• Northern Rockies Coordination Center (NRCC) NEW
• Southwest Coordination Center (SWCC) NEW

The 2000 U.S. fire season

The 2000 western US fire season was at the time the most expensive in history, burning close to 7.4 million acres and costing over a billion dollars in suppression. A Clinton White House memorandum from 8 August 2000 described it as tracking toward the worst fire season in 50 years. It was also the season in which the debate over the Russian Ilyushin Il-76 waterbomber came to a head — see the waterbomber debate section below.

• White House Memorandum on Impacts of Wildland Fires to Rural Communities, 8 August 2000 NEW — the primary government document for the 2000 fire season; as of 7 August 2000, 63,623 wildland fires had burned more than 4 million acres at a cost of $500 million in firefighting expenses.
• Forest fires in the USA: Tourist sites closed — GFMC, 9 August 2000 FIXED — GFMC archived situation report for the 2000 fire season in the United States, including tourist and community impacts.
• Montana Evacuations — NPR, 9 August 2000 FIXED — interview with a teacher evacuated from Corvallis, Montana, staying at a Red Cross shelter in Hamilton. She describes hearing the fire roaring as she fled with her family. NPR has preserved this audio.
• Western Fires — NPR, 6 August 2000 FIXED — interview with firefighter Tim Duck working the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho, where U.S. Marines had joined the firefighting effort. Captures the scale of the federal mobilisation at the peak of the season.
• 2000 Fire Season Most Expensive in History — Taxpayers for Common Sense, December 2000 FIXED — the federal government spent a record $1.6 billion fighting wildfires in 2000, according to TCS’s report “From the Ashes.” Thanks to Jonathan Oppenheimer, Director Forest Campaign.
• Wikipedia — 2002 Rodeo–Chediski Fire, Arizona NEW — at the time the largest fire in Arizona history, with over 460,000 acres burned and 30,000 evacuees; the fire referenced in the original page as “Blazing Arizona is disaster zone”.
• NASA/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio — Arizona Fires, 21 June 2002 NEW — Landsat-7 imagery of the Rodeo and Chediski fires as they merged into a single blaze.
• Firestorm: Arizona Wildfires — PBS NewsHour, 2002 NEW — video report from the Rodeo-Chediski fire; 400,000 acres burned, 400 homes destroyed, 30,000 evacuated.

Financial resources for natural disasters

This section was added to the original page on behalf of Brittany Fisher. Links updated to current equivalents where the originals have moved.

• FEMA — Help After a Disaster FIXED
• SBA — Disaster Loans and Grants FIXED
• American Red Cross — Financial Assistance after Disaster FIXED
• DisasterAssistance.gov NEW — US federal portal for all forms of disaster assistance.
• Pre-Disaster Financial Preparedness — Ready.gov / FEMA FIXED — emergency fund, document safeguarding, insurance review, and recovery planning.
• Do You Need Disaster Insurance for Your Home? — Triad Financial Services FIXED — covers what standard homeowners insurance does and does not include, and the case for adding disaster-specific coverage for flood, earthquake, landslide and sinkhole.
• How Mortgages Are Affected in Disaster-Prone Areas — MortgageCalculator.biz FIXED — covers how natural disasters affect property values, insurance premiums, property taxes and mortgage rates, with risk maps for earthquake, flood, hail, hurricane, tornado and wildfire across the United States.
• Get Prepared Before a Disaster Strikes — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) FIXED — federal regulator’s pre-disaster financial preparedness guide: document gathering, insurance review (homeowner, flood, renter, auto), climate and flood risk assessment.
• Disasters and Financial Planning — AICPA & CIMA Disaster Relief Resource Center FIXED — the AICPA has migrated to AICPA-CIMA following its merger with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. The Disaster Relief Resource Center covers preparation, tax relief (including IRS casualty loss FAQs and state-by-state tax relief guides), and business recovery. Includes the joint AICPA/Red Cross/NEFE guide to disaster preparedness and financial recovery.

The world’s largest waterbomber — the Ilyushin Il-76TD debate

The pages below document a sustained debate over whether the United States should accept Russian offers of the Ilyushin Il-76TD for large wildfire suppression. The primary argument — that the aircraft’s capacity dwarfed anything then in the US fleet, and that its rejection was driven by institutional and trade considerations rather than operational ones — was never resolved either way.

• Wikipedia — Ilyushin Il-76 FIXED
• Airborne Fire Disaster Control by the Russian Civil Defense — GFMC, IFFN No. 11 (1994) FIXED — the technical paper on the Il-76TP in firefighting use, including the 44-tonne tank capacity and operational characteristics. (Thanks to John D Anderson.)
• Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario — James E. Hansen, PNAS 2000
• Opinion: World’s Best Fire-Fighting Plane Ignored — on this site. (Thanks to John D Anderson.)
• Russia So Far Denied Invitation to Centre Stage in Environmental Defence — by Stuart B Dobson. On this site.
• Catherine Ford — a prominent Canadian opinion-shaper — on this site.
• Media Statement from Australia’s Planet Ark — Leading Australian Environmentalist Slams U.S. Forest Authorities. On this site.
• Common Misconceptions Held by US Government Department Officials in Respect of the Ilyushin Il-76 “Waterbomber” — by Stuart B Dobson. Also available in PDF format
• A reader responds — to the ABC News “Plane Truth” piece.
• Global Emergency Response — Press Release: Press Release 2001/1 (PDF, 150 KB)

Waterbomber debate — contemporary reporting

News articles and primary documents from 1998–2002. Five of the twelve original links are now confirmed live; the rest are in the archive block below.

• Los Alamos Fire Fueled by US Protectionism — GFMC archive of Gazeta.ru report, 16 May 2000 FIXED — GFMC summary of the Gazeta.ru article reporting that FEMA requested the Il-76 for the Los Alamos fire, but the plan was cancelled at the last minute by the US Forest Service.
• Forest Service Ignores Offers of Russian Help — WorldNetDaily, 30 August 2002 FIXED — by Sarah Foster. The most detailed single account of the Il-76 campaign; quotes Forest Service and BLM aviation officials on their objections, and Tom Robinson of Global Emergency Response on the rejection. Note: WorldNetDaily is a conservative outlet rated low for factual reporting by media fact-checkers; treat the advocacy framing accordingly.
• Russian ‘Waterbomber’ Unwelcome by Feds — WorldNetDaily, October 2007 FIXED — follow-up piece covering the 2007 California fires, confirming the Il-76 still had not passed FAA inspections. The original headline in the fire page was “Could Russian Waterbomber Save California?”; this is the same story at its current URL. Same caveat on source applies.
• U.S. Firefighters Reject Big Russian Jet — ABC News, 12 August 2000 FIXED — by Margaret Litvin. The ABC News piece referred to in the original page as “The Plane Truth”; the story is now filed under its full headline. Includes the Forest Service aviation official’s direct quote: “We looked, and we didn’t care for the product.” The reader response to this piece is on this site at response.html.
• US Takes a Pass on a Soviet-era Firefighting Plane — Christian Science Monitor, 3 December 1998 FIXED — the earliest of the major pieces; written in the context of the 1998 Russian Far East fires, in which the Il-76 was deployed but the situation was already out of control on arrival. Behind a soft paywall but the first paragraphs are accessible without a subscription.
• NATO Media Library — Field Exercise “Bogorodsk 2002”, Noginsk, Russian Federation, 25–27 September 2002 FIXED — the photo gallery that was in the original page is live at a different path. The exercise involved EMERCOM — the Russian agency that owns the Il-76 waterbombers — demonstrating disaster response capabilities to NATO partners. Background: NATO EADRCC: Exercise Bogorodsk 2002.
• Global Emergency Response — GFMC profile of the Il-76 waterbomber programme NEW — the GFMC’s own detailed page on Global Emergency Response (the Canadian-Russian-American joint venture run by Tom Robinson that was at the centre of the debate), with technical specifications and the history of EMERCOM’s firefighting operations. The most complete single source on this site for the Il-76 as a firefighting system.
• Wikipedia — Beriev Be-200 Altair NEW — while the Il-76 debate was running, EMERCOM was simultaneously developing the Be-200, a jet-powered amphibious flying boat with a 12-tonne water capacity scooped from the surface in 14 seconds. First flown September 1998; entered EMERCOM service July 2003. Deployed operationally in Italy (2004), Portugal (2006–2007), Indonesia (2006), Greece (2007), Israel (2010), Serbia (2012–), Turkey (2020–2021), and elsewhere. European certification revoked March 2022 following Ukraine sanctions; a Be-200 was destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike at Yeysk airbase in May 2026.

Satellite and remote sensing

• NASA FIRMS NEW — the standard global reference for near-real-time fire detections.
• NASA Earth Observatory — Fires
• NOAA NESDIS FIXED — replaces old goes.noaa.gov and oses1.wwb.noaa.gov.
• USGS — Wildfire Remote Sensing FIXED
• Copernicus CAMS — Fire Radiative Power NEW
• CRISP — Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (NUS) FIXED — satellite imagery of Southeast Asia; source of many fire and smoke images from the 1997–98 episodes.

Retired satellite systems — current equivalents

The original page linked to several satellite imaging and monitoring systems that have since been decommissioned, restructured, or superseded. What replaced each one is noted below, with live links where a direct successor exists.

• MODIS Rapid Response System (rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/firemaps/) ARCHIVE — the MODIS Land Rapid Response System was decommissioned and its near-real-time fire function absorbed into NASA FIRMS FIXED, which now carries both MODIS and VIIRS active fire data globally. Already listed above.
• NOAA OSEI Fire Directory (oses1.wwb.noaa.gov/OSEIfireind.html) ARCHIVE — the OSEI (Operational Significant Event Imagery) system was retired as NOAA reorganised its satellite operations under NESDIS. The direct replacement for wildfire satellite monitoring is NOAA’s new Wildland Fire Data Portal NEW, launched January 2026. It uses the Next Generation Fire System (NGFS), which applies artificial intelligence to GOES satellite data to detect fires at near-neighbourhood scale in near real-time. Background and context: NOAA NESDIS — Fire monitoring from space NEW.
• Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aerosol pages (toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/aerosols/) ARCHIVE — TOMS-EP ended operations in December 2005. The aerosol index data it produced (used to track smoke from large fires) is archived and accessible via NASA Earthdata — TOMS instrument page FIXED. Current smoke aerosol tracking is done through the MODIS and VIIRS instruments via FIRMS, and globally through Copernicus CAMS.
• SeaWIFS Project (seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov) ARCHIVE — the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWIFS) operated 1997–2010 and was primarily an ocean colour instrument; it was included in the original page for its smoke-plume imagery of forest fires. Archived data is at NASA Ocean Color Web FIXED. The SeaWIFS mission has been succeeded by NASA PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) NEW, launched February 2024, which carries the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) with hyperspectral coverage extending into the UV — useful for aerosol and smoke characterisation beyond what SeaWIFS provided.
• Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) GOES page (wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/) ARCHIVE — the GHCC at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center evolved into the Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center (GHRC DAAC) FIXED, which archives hydrometeorological data but no longer hosts real-time GOES fire imagery. Real-time GOES fire imagery is now served through the NOAA Wildland Fire Data Portal above and through NASA FIRMS.
• GRID-UNEP Forest Fires Monitoring Report (grid.unep.ch/fires/) ARCHIVE — GRID-UNEP Sioux Falls (the UN Environment Programme Global Resource Information Database centre that hosted this page) closed and its data functions were redistributed. The UNEP fire monitoring role is now carried by the UNEP Spreading Like Wildfire report (2022) (already listed above) and by GRID-Arendal NEW, the Norwegian environmental communications centre that now partners with UNEP on environmental data products, including fire-related synthesis work.
• MODIS Fire Atlas pages (modarch.gsfc.nasa.gov/fire_atlas/) ARCHIVE — the MODIS Fire Atlas (which provided country-level fire maps for Russia, Brazil, Canada, and Florida among others) was part of an early NASA fire data infrastructure that was consolidated into NASA FIRMS. FIRMS carries the full MODIS archive from 2000 onwards and now also VIIRS data from 2012, all accessible through the FIRMS archive download tool NEW.

Worldwide fire resources

• Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) — University of Freiburg. Current and historical global fire data, policy documents, and technical resources.
  • Current and Recent Significant Global Fire Events FIXED (Thanks to John D Anderson.)
• FAO — Forest Fire Management FIXED — replaces old FAO WAICENT press-release URLs.
• UNEP — Spreading Like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires (2022) NEW — projects a 50% increase in extreme fire risk by 2100.
• WHO — Wildfires and health Q&A NEW
• US EPA — National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) FIXED
• European Environment Agency — Air Pollution FIXED (Thanks to Jennifer Carter for updating the original link.)
• US Geological Survey (USGS) FIXED
• ATSDR — Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry FIXED
• ReliefWeb — Fire Disasters FIXED — ReliefWeb migrated from wwwnotes.reliefweb.int to reliefweb.int.
• UK National Air Quality Archive FIXED — replaces old airquality.co.uk/archive.

Health effects of smoke and fire

• US EPA — Protect yourself from wildfire smoke and ash NEW
• CDC — Wildfires NEW
• AirNow — Fires and Your Health NEW
• US EPA — DIY air cleaners to reduce wildfire smoke indoors NEW
• OSHA — Wildfires FIXED — occupational health guidance for firefighters and outdoor workers.
• US EPA — Criteria Air Pollutants FIXED
• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)
• World Air Quality Index NEW

Previous fires — regional archive

Russia

The Russian Far East and Siberia have experienced severe fire seasons in 1998, 2003, 2010, 2019, and 2021. The 1998 fires, which burned an area equivalent to Switzerland, prompted the UN experts to describe them as a global disaster; that episode was also the occasion for the Ilyushin waterbomber debate, covered in the section above.

• Global Fire Monitoring Center — GFMC archive for Russian fire events.
• Forest Fires in Russia and Northern China — NASA Earth Observatory NEW — SeaWIFS image from June 2000, with a note that the most severe recent outbreak at the time of the image was 1998.
• Forest Fires in Eastern Russia — NASA Earth Observatory, July 2003 NEW
• Siberian fires declared global disaster — ENN Daily News, 26 October 1998, via ReliefWeb FIXED — the ENN report, forwarded by Environmental News Network on 26 October 1998, reported that fires burning out of control for three months had been assessed by UN experts as a global disaster affecting an area the size of Switzerland. The original ENN URL is gone and the Western Washington University course page that quoted it (faculty.wwu.edu/wallin/envr442) now redirects to the faculty homepage. The ReliefWeb compilation carries the same contemporaneous reporting and UN expert assessment.
• Forest Fires on the Island of Sakhalin and Khabarovsk Krai — UNDAC Mission Report, UNOCHA, November 1998 FIXED — the UN assessment mission confirmed 2 million hectares burned across Sakhalin and Khabarovsk, three deaths, 700 homeless on Sakhalin, and classified the disaster as a global ecological catastrophe.
• Russian Federation Environmental Emergency — OCHA Situation Report No. 3, 13 October 1998 FIXED — fires continued to severely affect Khabarovsk and Sakhalin; international significance in terms of biodiversity impact and potential global warming.
• More than 2.9 million acres have burned in what UN terms an ‘ecological disaster’ — ReliefWeb, October 1998 FIXED — two-thirds of Sakhalin’s forest burned; 30 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted from Khabarovsk alone.
• Russia: Fires in Far East Leave Ecological, Financial Problems — RFE/RL, 22 October 1998 FIXED — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent reporting from Khabarovsk as rain slowed the five-month advance. On-the-ground detail: logging companies forced to fight fires rather than cut timber; federal reimbursement promised but unlikely given national insolvency.

Amazon / Brazil

The 1998 Roraima fires burned approximately 1.5 million acres of savanna and forest in Brazil’s northernmost state, driven by an El Niño-related drought. The CIMSS GOES imagery from that event is one of the earliest satellite records of a major Amazon fire episode.

• INPE — Monitoramento de Queimadas e Incêndios FIXED — Brazil’s national space research institute, real-time Amazon fire monitoring. The old condor.dsa.inpe.br/ult_focos address is retired.
• GOES-8 imagery of fires in Roraima, Brazil — 15–17 March 1998 FIXED — the CIMSS GOES gallery page with shortwave IR images showing fire hot spots and smoke over Roraima during the 1998 episode. This was one of the original links in the fire page and the CIMSS page is still live.
• Wikipedia — 1998 Brazil wildfires NEW — overview of the Roraima fires and broader Amazon fire situation in 1998.
• Global Forest Watch — Fires NEW
• Rainforest Action Network FIXED — replaces old ran.org/ran/index.html.

California

• CAL FIRE — California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection NEW — the primary source for California wildfire information; incident updates, statistics, and fire history.
• California Air Resources Board (CARB) FIXED — replaces old arb.ca.gov/emisinv/ emission inventory pages.
• AirNow — Air Quality in California

Canada

• Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) NEW — Natural Resources Canada; fire weather, active fire maps, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index.
• Natural Resources Canada — Forest Fires FIXED — replaces the old Canadian Forest Service Fire Management Network (nofc.forestry.ca/fire/).
• BC Wildfire Service FIXED — replaces old for.gov.bc.ca.
• Thousands flee fire in Salmon Arm — CBC News, 10 August 1998 FIXED — B.C. Premier Glen Clark ordered the evacuation of 8,000 residents; Prime Minister Chrétien ordered the Armed Forces into the firefighting effort. CBC has preserved the original broadcast script.
• Salmon Arm still on forest fire alert — CBC News, 1998 FIXED — about 6,000 residents allowed to return after the two-day evacuation; 2,000 still unable to return; the full 15,000-person city remained on alert.

Greece

The 1998 Greece fires caused severe damage to Attica, Attica and Ioannina, with multiple fatalities and widespread destruction. A further very destructive fire season occurred in 2007 (more than 60 killed, ancient Olympia threatened) and again in 2018 (102 killed at Mati, near Athens — the deadliest fire in modern Greek history).

• Greece — General Secretariat for Civil Protection NEW — official Greek emergency management agency; current wildfire information.
• Deadly Fires in Greece — NASA Earth Observatory, August 2007 NEW — MODIS image of the 2007 fire season with more than 60 deaths reported, fires in the Peloponnese threatening ancient Olympia.

Florida (1998)

The 1998 Florida wildfires burned approximately 500,000 acres across 18 northeastern counties, driven by an El Niño-related drought after an unusually wet winter. Flagler County was the first in Florida’s history to face a countywide evacuation order; I-95 was closed from Brevard County to Jacksonville; and the Daytona NASCAR race was postponed from July to October.

• Wikipedia — 1998 Florida wildfires NEW — comprehensive account of the “Florida Firestorm” including timeline, county-level impact, and suppression response.
• Florida Fires — NPR, 3 July 1998 FIXED — NPR correspondent reporting from Palm Coast in Flagler County during the evacuation of 70,000 people. NPR has preserved this audio archive.
• Evacuation Order Lifted — NPR, 6 July 1998 FIXED — residents returning as the immediate threat passed, with the fire risk still present.
• Florida Fires — NPR, 2 July 1998 FIXED — interview with Len Ciecieznski of the Volusia County Emergency Operations Center; 25,000–30,000 residents ordered to evacuate over the previous 24 hours.
• Florida Fires — NPR, 4 July 1998 FIXED — NPR correspondent reporting from Flagler County as the evacuation continued.
• Florida Fires — NPR, 5 July 1998 FIXED — over 100,000 Floridians had been forced from their homes; fires burning along half the length of the coast.

Mexico and Central America fires (1998)

The 1998 Mexico and Central American fire season was driven by severe El Niño-related drought. By May, fires had pushed smoke across the Gulf of Mexico into Texas, producing some of the worst air pollution readings recorded in Dallas and Houston. Mexico City reported its worst air quality since 1995.

• Mexico Fires — NPR, 15 May 1998 FIXED — BBC reporter Emma Patterson speaking to NPR about the effect of widespread forest fires on Mexico City’s air quality; authorities warned residents to expect the worst pollution levels since 1995.
• Significant Smoke from Widespread Fires in Mexico and Central America — on this site. Information from Forrest M. Mims III.

Australian bushfires

• NSW Rural Fire Service FIXED — replaces old bushfire.nsw.gov.au.
• Australian Bureau of Meteorology FIXED
• Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) NEW
• Environment Protection Authority Victoria — Air Quality FIXED
• Bush and Forest Fires in Australia — GFMC, 20 November 2002 FIXED — GFMC situation report covering the 2002 NSW fire season, with MODIS satellite imagery and NSW Rural Fire Service updates. Replaces a 30 June 2002 fire atlas page at the retired uni-freiburg.de address. (Thanks to John D Anderson.)
• MyFireWatch — Landgate, Western Australia FIXED — satellite fire detection for WA; replaces the old Department of Land Administration (dola.wa.gov.au) fire detection map.

Ethiopia (2000)

Between late February and early April 2000, severe forest fires burned through the highland forests of Ethiopia following a three-year drought. The event prompted the first successful multinational wildfire suppression campaign in Africa, with assistance from Germany, South Africa, and the United States channelled through the Global Fire Monitoring Centre (GFMC).

• Ethiopia: Fire Emergency between February and April 2000 — GFMC/IFFN No. 22 (April 2000) NEW — the primary GFMC account of the 2000 Ethiopia fire emergency. One fire in the Bale region alone destroyed 16,000 hectares of virgin forest and natural coffee forest, threatening the Bale Mountains National Park (home to half the world’s Simien foxes). Some 170,000 local personnel were mobilised.
• Ethiopia: The Fire Emergency between February and April 2000 — GFMC/IFFN No. 23 (December 2000) NEW — a condensed summary version published six months after the event, describing the multinational response in detail.
• Update on the Forest Fires in Ethiopia: 6 March 2000 — GFMC NEW — contemporaneous situation update from the GFMC dated 6 March 2000, published the day before the BBC story below. Notes fires approaching a national park and the arrest of 150 people on suspicion of arson.
• FAO — Global Forest Fire Assessment: West and East Sahelian Africa (2001) NEW — documents the 2000 Horn of Africa fires in its Africa chapter; includes the satellite imagery used during the suppression campaign.

Medline search and medical journals

• PubMed (NLM) — search wildfire smoke, forest fire health, PM2.5 respiratory.
• Medline Search Sites — Vads Corner
• Medical Journal Sites — Vads Corner
• Occupational Health, Safety and Environmental Sites — Vads Corner
• Google News — wildfire smoke and health

First posted 22 September 1997 · Last updated 15 October 2017 · Comprehensively revised 10 September 2026
Disclaimer · cyberdoc@vadscorner.com · View original 1997–2017 page