Interactive Map of Coal and Peat Fires by Rudiger Gens
Online version of the coal- and peat-fire world map
The online world map of coal- and peat fires is a web accessible site showing the location of known and reported coal- and peat fires worldwide. The world map is designed with the popular Google Maps as a background and uses enhanced functionality of the standard Google Maps to help the user navigate to an area of interest. In this easy to navigate web site, coal- and peat fire locations are marked with a special fire icon. At the broadest level a user can view the major coal- and peat fires sites at the continental scale. With successive clicks on the coal- and peat fire icons, the user can zoom into finer national, regional and local scales. At the local scale the user can see the location of the fire in the context of its surrounding landscape. Information, such as the location coordinates, start date of fire, field photograph, for each individual fire is provided along with the source from where this information is collected. The online map also guides the user from the individual coal- and peat fire location back to its corresponding Case Study and Field Photos presented in the Elsevier Coal and Peat Fire Book Series, where the user can find a wealth of additional information about the fire.
The world map for the online version of the coal- and peat fires book is implemented using enhanced functionality of the standard Google Maps interface. This short introduction explains the main features of this interface.
Part of the standard navigation features of Google Maps are summarized in Figure 1: the panning buttons (1), the zooming control (2), and the map scale information (3). We have added the geographic coordinates at the mouse cursor position (4) and navigation buttons (5) that center on the general overview and the various continents.
The various coal- and peat fire regions are indicated by an icon 
.
Clicking on the icon of a coal- and peat fire region opens a pop up window that contains a short description and a link that opens a sub page with more information about this particular region.
Each coal- and peat fire region has a number of coal- and peat fire locations, indicated by the navigation buttons on the right side for all the individual fires and an "Overview" button to reset the map to its original display. Clicking any of the site buttons will center the map on that specific coal- and peat fire site at an appropriate zoom level.
For each individual coal- and peat fire, there is additional information available as a pop up window.
