Europe's Copernicus Browser now includes wildfire tracking as a default visualization, making higher-resolution satellite imagery easier to access for monitoring fires and smoke.
<p>The wildfires afflicting communities across the world can now be tracked more easily by anyone using Europe’s free and open satellite imagery service—all thanks to a wildfire visualization script originating from nearly a decade ago.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/">Copernicus Browser</a> provides free access to the latest satellite imagery taken by the European Space Agency’s <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/The_Sentinel_missions">Sentinel satellites</a> for the European Union’s Earth observation program. The three satellites of the Sentinel-2 mission have proven especially useful for <a href="https://forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu/">wildfire monitoring</a> by providing multi-spectral imaging at resolutions as <a href="https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/instruments/sentinel-2-msi">granular as 10 meters</a> in visible light and near-infrared bands—and the Copernicus Browser previously offered 10 default visualization layers using different combinations of spectral bands.</p>
<p>Now Copernicus Browser has also added a straightforward “wildfires” visualization layer for Sentinel-2 imagery that went live on August 4. Anyone clicking on this layer while looking at a wildfire location can see active fires in white or yellow, burning vegetation in red, and burned landscapes in dark brown or black.</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/europes-free-satellite-service-just-made-it-easier-to-track-wildfires/">Read full article</a></p>
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# Europe's free satellite service just made it easier to track wildfires
Source: [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/europes-free-satellite-service-just-made-it-easier-to-track-wildfires/](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/europes-free-satellite-service-just-made-it-easier-to-track-wildfires/)
Users could previously add this script manually to Copernicus Browser sessions by copying and pasting it using the custom visualization option under the default layers\.
But[Simon Proud](https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-proud/), mission scientist for Sentinel\-2 at the European Space Agency, pushed to get the script integrated into Copernicus Browser as a default option\. He announced that the integration had finally happened in a[Discord channel](https://discord.com/invite/bellingcat)on a server run by the investigative journalism group[Bellingcat](https://www.bellingcat.com/)\.
There are other existing and[emerging satellite constellations](https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/07/google-backed-satellites-for-wildfire-detection-launch-as-smoke-chokes-us-canada/)capable of detecting and monitoring wildfires and wildfire smoke\. NASA’s FIRMS tool provides free access to a[global map of fires](https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/)detected by NASA satellite sensors and is rapidly updated within several hours—although such NASA satellite imagery is only available in coarser resolutions down to 250 meters\.
By comparison, the Sentinel 2 satellite imagery is updated every few days but provides much higher resolution imagery in certain bands down to a 10\-meter spatial resolution\. That makes it arguably the best free and publicly available tool for delivering higher\-resolution satellite imagery of everything from wildfires to[war zones](https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/07/european-union-grants-us-request-to-restrict-satellite-images-of-iran-war-region/)\.
Unfortunately, there is[no shortage of wildfires](https://arstechnica.com/tag/wildfires/)to keep an eye on across the world as climate change exacerbates traditional wildfire seasons\. Much of Washington and Oregon is experiencing wildfires and smoke, Canada’s wildfire season is on track to be one of the country’s worst, and firefighters continue to battle blazes in France and Spain, where hundreds of thousands of people have evacuated during a record\-breaking wildfire season\.
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Article discusses new firefighting technologies, including a biodegradable fire suppressant (Ecofire), AI-driven early-warning systems (Predifire), wireless sensor networks (SenForFire), and an AI wildfire assessment model, all aimed at combating increasingly severe wildfires in France and Spain driven by climate change.
Google has released a new high-resolution satellite imagery map of Brazil's forests from 2008, available in Google Earth and Earth Engine, to help authorities track deforestation progress.
Wildfires in Spain forced the evacuation of NASA's Deep Space Communications Complex in Robledo de Chavela, potentially damaging sensitive equipment; operations were seamlessly transferred to the Goldstone complex in California to ensure uninterrupted spacecraft communications.