NewsForest fires of Tasmania Island

The forest fires occurred in Tasmania Island south of Australia. The fire spreading had continued over a month since early in January 2019. More than 205,000-hectare area was burned down until February 15, 2019.
Figure 1 shows the fire smoke that can be seen clearly in Tasmania Island images observed by TANSO-CAI from January to early February. Red arrows show the smoke from the forest fire, which occurred in various places. Especially, on January 4, 22, and 28, the smoke was streamed by strong wind.

Forest fires often occur in Australia due to intense heat, drying, strong wind, and lightning. In January 2019, Tasmania has experienced one of the hottest and driest Januarys on record according to Australian Meteorological Agency. This is the reason of the extensive forest fire in this year.
Many precious ancient species of primeval forests lives in Tasmania Island. The researchers are investigating their damage and alert that these anomaly by climate change may have risk of the spices extinction.

※The TANSO-CAI image was composed of band2 (674nm) in red, band3 (870nm) in green and band1 (380nm) in blue.

Fig. 1 Smoke stream images of TANSO-CAI. The forest fires occurred in various places for over a month.