Live Fire Map:Explore recent satellite-detected fire activity within the Bornean orangutan's extant range. This interactive tracker displays a three-day rolling window of NASA Fire Information for Resource Management (FIRMS) fire detections and updates daily. Click on a fire for details. This fall when OFICanada volunteer, Owen Miller, heard about the current extreme fire season ongoing in Borneo he had an idea for how to share the situation with Canadians and OFICanada supporters. He created the map at the top of this page showing active wildfires across Borneo with data from NASA Fire Information for Resource Management (FIRMS) and his data on orangutan protected areas. This map shows the dire situation across orangutan habitat right now.
Owen originally reached out to us with an idea for how he could use his skills to help us learn more about great apes and their disappearing habitat. His technical background and skills brought together public data from various sources to look into great ape habitat today. The results of his study provides a very stark illustration of the crisis orangutans, and all the great apes are facing across their habitat. Here is Owen’s story and what he created.
What 25 Years of Satellite Data Tell Us About Great Ape Habitat : by Owen Miller
I have admired great apes for as long as I can remember. It is fascinating how humans and our closest living relatives have diverged over time, both in how we look and, more somberly, how differently our populations have fared. Our primate cousins are facing extinction, largely due to habitat loss from human expansion. In this article, I decided to investigate one of the primary tools for protecting wildlife habitat: the establishment of protected areas. Using 25 years of satellite forest cover data (2001-2025) across 13 core great ape range countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, I analyzed whether protected areas within great ape ranges have effectively slowed forest loss.
These countries lost roughly 84 million hectares of tree cover since 2001, nearly 12% of what existed in 2000. Within great ape ranges specifically, forest loss was substantially lower inside protected areas versus outside of them: 63% less in Africa and 73% in Asia. Protection appears to make a real difference, supporting the case for further expansion and enforcement. The problem is that only about a fifth of mapped great ape range falls within a protected area at all.
I’m currently working at the UN Environment Programme in Montreal, with a background in environmental science and public policy. I’m excited about the possibility of contributing to OFIC’s impactful work. I built this as a portfolio piece, but the findings matter more to me than the demonstration. You can explore the full interactive analysis, with country-level breakdowns and maps, here: https://019fd814-974a-
OFI continues to fight multiple fires, along side Indonesian Ministry of Forestry officials, and local agencies and communities both within Tanjung Puting National Park and the Rawa Kuno Orangutan Legacy forest in the village of Pasir Panjang. This fire shown above, in OFI protected orangutan habitat came right up to the Sekoyner River, which is the boundary to the Park on the right. With your help OFI fire fighting teams stopped this fire before it could jump the river.
Please consider a donation to help OFI continue to fight ongoing fires in Tanjung Puting National Park and surrounding orangutan habitat.