Overflight Confirms Vegetation Fires and Deforestation

Hello reader!

It follows a note published on the day (10/05) in the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) informing that overflight confirms vegetation fires and deforestation observed by satellites in Mato Grosso State.

Duda Falcão

Overflight Confirms Vegetation Fires

and Deforestation Observed

by Satellites in Mato Grosso

Friday, October 05, 2012

By means of helicopter from the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), technicians of the National Institute for Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE) have flew over vegetation fires and deforestation identified by satellites in Sinop, Mato Grosso. This action, held in the last week of September, has attested the veracity of orbital data.

This region was chosen for field analysis because concentrate large numbers of hotspots. In Mato Grosso, only in September, there were 74583 hotspots. The higher occurrence of fires in this period was recorded in Feliz Natal (3883 spots) and Nova Ubiratã (3603 spots).

The comparison between photographs taken during the field mission and satellite images is important for validating the data released by monitoring systems. For this work, the municipalities of Sinop, Claudia, Santa Carmem, Feliz Natal, Vera, Nova Ubiratã and Tapurah were overflown.

The images from INPE enable Ibama’s supervisors to find areas of deforestation and illegal vegetation fires. During the mission, the team has landed in two areas that had been fined by Ibama’s inspection.

In addition to vegetation fires were also checked deforestation spots identified by DETER system.

The pictures taken during the mission are available under http://www.obt.inpe.br/fototeca/fototeca.html