Published on 23 August 2019
The Amazon is not the only place being ravaged by fire at this moment: Gran Canaria is also being hit by forest fires.
An unprecedented wildfire has ripped through the island of Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. The wildfire, which started on Saturday 17 August, has now started to subside after engulfing around 10 000 hectares of land, leading to the evacuation of over 9000 people.
The false colour image above, captured on 19 August, was created using the shortwave infrared bands from the Copernicus Sentinel-2’s instrument, and allows us to clearly see the fires on the ground in bright orange. Burn scars are visible in dark brown. These bands also allow us to see through smoke – but not clouds.