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Objective  data  on  the  burnt  forest  areas  obtained  over  a  long  observation  period  are  urgently  needed  for
the  studies  of  various  processes  connected  with  the  occurrence  and  consequences  of  forest  fires.  This kind  of  information  for  the  territory  of  Russia  can  only  be  obtained  with  the  use  of  satellite  observations  because  of  its  large area and heterogeneity. One of the most trusted sources of this information is based on the observations of active  burning.  These  data  have  their  drawbacks  caused  primarily  by  the  low  spatial  resolution  of  the  data  used  (from hundreds of meters to kilometers). At the same time they provide an acceptable frequency of observations to monitor the spreading of forest fires (several times a day). And what is most important about these data, the large,  homogeneous  (comparable  in  space  and  time)  data  sets  have  already  been  accumulated.  It  makes  it  possible to use the data not only for real-time monitoring of forest fire status, but also to obtain information about the long-term dynamics of the forest fires distribution in large areas. This paper presents the methodology of assessment and analysis of the forest burnt areas based on satellite observations of active burning developed at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS). This methodology has been used for more than ten years in a number of scientific and applied systems, including the Information System for Remote Monitoring of Forest Fires, the Federal Forestry Agency of the Russian Federation (ISDM Rosleskhoz, https://nffc.aviales.ru).  Particular  attention  is  paid  to  the  issues  of  accuracy  assessment  of  the  obtained  estimates.  The paper  also  summarizes  the  capabilities  of  various  tools  implemented  in  the  VEGA-Science  system  (http://sci -vega.ru/) for analysis of long time series on forest fires accumulated in the system. The main focus is presentation and discussion of data on forest fires, that occurred in the territory of Russia during the fire seasons of the years 2001–2016. The paper presents estimates of the areas, burnt by forest fires during this period. It should be noted, that the information given not only concerns the total burnt forest areas estimates in the territory of the country, but also the particular burnt area distribution between certain forest types and between specific periods of  fire  seasons.  In  particular,  the  paper  concludes  that  although  the  dynamics  of  total  burnt  forest  area  did  not  demonstrate  any  significant  trends,  it  is  still  notable  that  the  average  burnt  forest  areas  have  been  considerably  increased  during  the  21 st   century.  The  paper  also  provides  information  about  the  frequency  of  the  fires  occurrence in different areas and how it changed in specific periods of the 21
st  century.