ESA's ERS-2 and Envisat satellites continuously survey fires burning across the Earth's surface with onboard sensors - the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) and the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) respectively, known as the ATSR Word Fire Atlas, which is available to users online in near-real time. The ATSR World Fire Atlas is the longest worldwide fire atlas available. Even if the atlas is not supposed to pick up all fires due to satellite overpass constraints and cloud coverage, it is statistically representative from one month to the other and from one year to the other.

Working like thermometers in the sky, the sensors measure thermal infrared radiation to take the temperature of Earth's land surfaces. Temperatures exceeding 308K at night are classed as burning fires. Data gathered from July 1996 to 28 August 2007 was used to plot the number of fires occurring monthly and show Greece has had four times the number of fires this August compared to its July and August 1998 records.

Weather conditions, including record summer temperatures and hot dry winds, in 2007 made parts of the Mediterranean - including Greece and southern Italy - a tinderbox, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said.

The ATSR World Fire Atlas provides data approximately six hours after acquisition. All available satellite passes are processed to create the ATSR World Fire Atlas. In addition to maps, the time, date, longitude and latitude of the hot spots are provided. The data are used for research in atmospheric chemistry, land use change, global change ecology, fire prevention and management and meteorology.

Quantifying fires is important for the ongoing study of climate because they have a significant impact on global atmospheric pollution, with biomass burning contributing to the global budgets of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. The 1998 El Nino, for example, helped encourage fires across Borneo which emitted up to 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, equivalent to Europe's entire carbon emissions that year.

One of the biggest problems during and after fires is obtaining an overall view of the damage and its evolution. With fires visible from space, Earth Observation is also being used to detect and monitor the active spots over affected areas. In October 2000, ESA and the French space agency (CNES) initiated the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, a joint initiative with now ten members, aiming at rapidly tasking Earth Observation satellites and delivering spacemaps to users concerned with emergency response, such as civil protection authorities, anywhere in the world.

Such a capacity can help monitor fire hazard by integrating imagery into geographic information systems used by decision makers and actors in the field. On 29 August, the National Cadastral Organisation of Greece requested support from the International Charter in response to the fire events affecting the country.

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Deadly fires finally out in Greece
Athens (AFP) Sept 3 - The forest fires that have ravaged southern Greece for the past 11 days, killing dozens of people, were finally extinguished Monday, fire services said.

At least 64 people have been killed in the Peloponnese peninsula and other areas and 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of countryside have been destroyed since August 24.

"Land forces remain on the alert at the scene to prevent any new outbreak," a fire brigade statement said at the end of a day which saw the last blazes conquered near Sparta, in the southern Peloponnese, and on Mount Parnon.

The fire service had deployed five water-bombing planes and two helicopters to Mount Parnon, which is difficult to access.

Populated areas were not threatened, a fire service spokesman said.

Nearly 100 fires per day were occurring on average last week, amid widespread anger that the government did not intervene soon enough and at the scale required.

The opposition Socialists (PASOK) have roundly attacked the government's handling of the fires with elections set for September 16. Before the tragedy, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis had appeared set for an easy electoral win.

Karamanlis has blamed arson for at least some of the fires, saying action would be taken against those responsible.

The Greek economy ministry estimates the fires caused around 1.6 billion euros (2.2 billion dollars) worth of damage. The European Commission has said the EU could pay up to 600 million euros in aid this year to help Greece recover.

Additional funds could be mobilised beyond the EU solidarity fund, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Saturday after flying over the affected areas.

The Greek government has already opened its coffers to help people who have lost homes and property in the disaster, handing out around 130 million euros in compensation so far.

Foreign Minister Dora Bayokannis meanwhile on Monday urged fellow EU nations to relaunch a plan for a European civil protection force.

The minister, who met with European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, plans to discuss with her EU counterparts next month a force which "would have planes and trained personnel at its disposition in member states," said Greek spokesman Vassilis Karavassilis.

Athens sees a basis for such a force in a report by former French foreign minister Michel Barnier who last year put forward a dozen measures to improve the EU's capacity to handle international crises.

These included pooling existing resources between member states and the possibility of the EU centrally acquiring a cache of planes and vehicles donated by EU nations.

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