Landsat’s Role in Managing Wildland Fires
Worldwide, fire plays a critical role in maintaining healthy forests, but fire can also be damaging. Homes are destroyed and the effects on air quality can be felt for miles. Forest fires are occurring more often and with greater intensity than in years past, and Landsat plays a critical role in understanding the impact. Landsat data enables land managers and scientists to assess the severity and extent of large fires as they plan recovery efforts; to improve safety and prevent damage to life, property and natural resources; to estimate how much pollution burning releases into the air; and to monitor the post-fire recovery of burned areas. Landsat satellites have been collecting information about forest fires since the 1970s. Landsat plays an important role in assessing the impact of fires on forest ecosystems and human society. Landsat satellites document the location and extent of burned areas, how severely fires burn, and the subsequent regrowth of the land after a forest fire. All this information helps land managers better manage our forests and other natural resources in the context of fire.
Fire Prevention in Spain
Science brief summary by: Laura E. P. Rocchio A group of European researchers have used Landsat data collected over a quarter of a century to evaluate fire management methods in
Landsat Helps Establish Bushfire Impact on Water Yields in Australia
Source: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation In the summer of 2002-03, bushfires burnt through 700,000 ha of forests in northeast Victoria in Australia. This region supplies 38 percent of
Greeks Get Space-Based Help In Wake of Deadly Fires
Contributor: European Space Agency (ESA) Cleanup and rebuilding teams responding to the devastation across Greece caused by this summer’s deadly fires are getting help from space. A series of crisis
Landsat and ASTER Provide Images of Alabaugh Canyon Fire to Emergency Responders
Contributor: Janice Nelson Satellite View Useful For Rehabilitation Effort The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has provided satellite imagery in the rehabilitation effort of Alabaugh
Quantifying Burn Severity
Contributors: TK, Jeannie Allen Through the Joint National Park Service (NPS)-USGS National Burn Severity Mapping Project, researchers use Landsat imagery to quantify fire effects over large, often remote regions and
