Burnt Area Detection In Pdn Using Two Post Fire Images

The dynamic of open fire phenomena makes remote sensing from satellite a good tool for both fire detection and burn area assessment. A multi-temporal approach rely on pre and post fire multispectral  images to derive vegetation maps (e.g.  Normalised Differential Vegetation Index-NDVI, dNBR )  However, in countries such as UK a pre-and post fire pair of  cloud free images  from  VNIR  operating satellite may be not available. This work focuses on detecting a burned area when only two post fire images  are available. The study area is Dovestones- Stalybridge  that was affected by a fire on 10th  April 2016.  Data acquired by Landsat OLI  (30mx30m  pixels) on 4 May and 5 June 2016 and Sentinel 2A on 20 April 2016 and 19 July 2016 were used  to derive dNDVI -differential NDVI- by using two post images. A validation fieldtrip was conducted  on July 2016 to identify  re-growing and burn patches  to  validate the obtained results. The results are promising and the techniques can be used to  validate burn area detection retrieved by using new SAR based methods or to complement more traditional methods based on dNDVI or dNBR by using a pre- post pairs. Work is in progress as more test cases  are needed to derive a threshold approach.