Satellite before and after

Sakha (Yakutia) wildfires 2021: Siberia's record fire season

Fires broke out in Sakha as soon as the snow began melting in May 2021 and burned through the summer, in the region's most severe fire season in decades.

The larch forests around Yakutsk and the Lena River, Republic of Sakha, Russia · May to September 2021 · Wildfire · Russia

Compare the imagery

Drag the divider, or focus it and use the arrow keys. Left of the divider is 10 Jun 2021, right is 1 Sep 2021, 83 days apart.

The interactive comparison needs JavaScript. Both images are shown below.

In this false-colour view water is dark blue to black, vegetation is bright green, bare ground is tan, freshly burned land is red-brown and cloud is cyan.

The two images

Satellite image of The larch forests around Yakutsk and the Lena River, Republic of Sakha, Russia on 10 Jun 2021, before the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
Before: Terra, 10 Jun 2021 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS
Satellite image of The larch forests around Yakutsk and the Lena River, Republic of Sakha, Russia on 1 Sep 2021, after the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
After: Aqua, 1 Sep 2021 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS

What the images show

On 10 June smaller red-brown scars — from earlier years, or from fires burning since May — are already scattered through the forest. On 1 September large burn scars, many of them dozens of kilometres long, lie on both sides of the Lena River.

About the event

  • NASA Earth Observatory reported that more than 8.4 million hectares of forest burned in Sakha in 2021, more than in any year since MODIS on the Terra satellite began collecting data in 2000.

Limits of this comparison

The before-image is not a fire-free baseline: fires had been burning since May. It is from Terra and the after-image from Aqua. Cloud covers the north-east of the 10 June image. This box is a small part of the area that burned.

Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

Dates were chosen by checking the imagery on both satellites for several days either side and keeping the clearest pass; the two images come from different satellites carrying the same instrument. Both use the same layer, MODIS Corrected Reflectance, bands 7-2-1.

Sources

We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Comparison slider: leaflet-side-by-side (MIT licence). Case last updated 13 Sep 2026.

Questions

What does the satellite image of The larch forests around Yakutsk and the Lena River, Republic of Sakha, Russia show?

On 10 June smaller red-brown scars — from earlier years, or from fires burning since May — are already scattered through the forest. On 1 September large burn scars, many of them dozens of kilometres long, lie on both sides of the Lena River.

When were the two satellite images taken?

The before-image was taken by Terra, 10 Jun 2021 and the after-image by Aqua, 1 Sep 2021, 83 days apart.

What can this before-and-after comparison not show?

The before-image is not a fire-free baseline: fires had been burning since May. It is from Terra and the after-image from Aqua. Cloud covers the north-east of the 10 June image. This box is a small part of the area that burned. Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

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