Wednesday, 11 February 2009

Victorian fires update

(Cross-posted from the Google Australia Blog. Here's the earlier post on mapping the fires.)

To follow up our post on Sunday, and with the tragedy in Victoria continuing, we've updated our map of the Victorian fires to incorporate the latest available satellite imagery from the Modis Rapid Response project at NASA/GSFC. You can toggle the button "Show Imagery" to see their most recent satellite imagery of some affected parts of Victoria. The small red polygons indicate that a fire is still burning (as at the time indicated beneath the map — 20 hours ago at the time of posting this).

We're continuing to try source the most hi-res imagery and fire data available and will update the map as soon as we get it (much of the satellite imagery is covered by smoke). We'll provide updates on the Google Australia Blog.


This map takes a constantly updating RSS feed from the Country Fire Authority of current fire incidents. To embed this map on your website, click here and then click "Get the Code."

We've set up a dedicated page (which we are linking to from the front page of google.com.au) that contains the Victorian fires map with imagery and a Google News feed. It also provides a link to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfires Appeal, to which so many Australians are contributing.

Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and, like all Australians, we're in awe of the efforts of everyone involved in the rescue and relief operations.