Spatiotemporal aspects of fire development in the Ural-Altai sector of the steppes of Northern Eurasia based on MODIS data

DOI: 10.35595/2414-9179-2025-2-31-164-177

View or download the article (Rus)

About the Authors

Vladimir M. Pavleichik

Institute of Steppe of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
11, Pionerskaya str., Orenburg, 460000, Russia,
E-mail: vmpavleychik@gmail.com

Natalya Yu. Svyatoha

Orenburg State University,
13, Pobedy ave., Orenburg, 460018, Russia,
E-mail: osugeo@yandex.ru

Abstract

The development of wildfires in the steppes of Northern Eurasia and adjacent territories has intra-regional differences due to the change in latitudinal-zonal conditions, landscape diversity, spatial structure and the level of impact of agricultural activities. One of the poorly studied territories in this regard is the Ural-Altai steppe sector on an area of 1.18 million km2, or 52 % of all the steppes of Northern Eurasia. The use of global products based on MODIS images—MCD14ML (thermal anomalies) and MCD64A1 (burnt areas) for 2001–2023 allowed us to identify the features of the formation of fire situations. A macro-regional trend towards a reduction in fire areas has been confirmed, with a particularly significant decline in the middle and southern steppe subzones. This trend is due to the widespread increase in pasture load on land, and for agricultural regions, the increasing fragmentation of space by newly cultivated agricultural fields. There is a high interannual variability in the development of fires, most likely related to the variety of meteorological conditions of fire danger in individual years. It has been revealed that according to the long-term and intra-annual dynamics of fires, the northern steppes have common features with the forest-steppes, and the middle and southern steppes with the northern steppes. The specified groupings of natural subzones (“pyrogenic areas”) specific fire situations correspond, differing in the conditions of spatial development of fires and the structure of agricultural production, etc. The intra-annual daily dynamics of fires indirectly confirms the anthropogenic cause of most fires. In the agriculturally developed regions, two peaks of fires are recorded—in April and in September-October, corresponding to the beginning and end of seasonal agricultural work. As the archives of MODIS images containing information from 2001 accumulate, the series of global fire data created on their basis becomes a convenient tool for identifying the features of fire situations at the macro-regional level.

Keywords

natural fires, steppes of Northern Eurasia, Ural-Altai sector, long-term and intra-annual dynamics

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For citation: Pavleichik V.M., Svyatoha N.Yu. Spatiotemporal aspects of fire development in the Ural-Altai sector of the steppes of Northern Eurasia based on MODIS data. InterCarto. InterGIS. Moscow: MSU, Faculty of Geography, 2025. V. 31. Part 2. P. 164–177. DOI: 10.35595/2414-9179-2025-2-31-164-177 (in Russian)