Every summer a wave of wildfires strikes Europe, destroying hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, causing tragic losses of life as the fires spread into populated areas and significant economic setbacks for the most affected regions. While Southern Europe suffers the most with these disasters, other parts of Europe cannot take their safety for granted, as the enormous forest fires that hit northern Sweden in the summer of 2018 demonstrate.

Intensive rainfall in the period of 18-19 July 2018 contributed to water level rising and local flooding in the southern Małopolska region. Indirect effects of precipitation can be observed on Sentinel-2 satellite images.

On 3-4 September 2018, the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw will host the third edition of the event "Innovation for Crisis Management" (I4CM).

In today's entry from the "Geoinformation Guide" series, we present the Copernicus Open Access Hub browser designed to download free and open satellite images from the Sentinel mission.