FOREST FIRE MONITORING AND DAMAGE ASSESSMENT IN MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPES 
THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES 
Jesüs San Miguel-Ayanz 
Alessandro Annoni 
Guido Schmuck 
Jean Meyer-Roux 
European Commission, 
DG-Joint Research Centre 
Space Applications Institute 
Agriculture Information Systems Unit 
I-21020, Ispra (Va), Italy 
ISPRS Commission VII, Working Group WG VII/2 
KEY WORDS: forest fires, remote sensing, Geographic Information system (GIS) 
ABSTRACT 
Forest fires constitute one of the major natural hazards in 
the Mediterranean region. Extensive areas are burnt 
every year producing large economic and environmental 
damage. This damage should not only be quantified by 
the amount of timber burnt but also by the environmental 
impact of forest fires on Mediterranean landscapes., 
which leads to land degradation and often prevents 
vegetation recovery. The present study combines low and 
high spatial resolution remotely sensed data in the 
detection of fires and mapping of burnt areas with 
geographic information systems (GIS) techniques in the 
assessment of fire damage. Environmental damage of 
burnt areas is derived from the combined analysis of burnt 
surfaces with European scale datasets, such as the 
CORINE database. 
1. MATERIAL AND METHODS 
1.1. Study Area 
The study area for the present region is located in 
southern Spain, near the village named Los Barrios which 
is located at 36? Lat. N, 5? 10' Long. W, within the 
region of Andalusia. Andalusia covers 87.268 square 
kilometers, i.e. 20% of the Spanish territory 
approximately and is one of the most fire prone regions in 
Mediterranean region due to its marked Mediterranean 
climate, with a very intense summer drought and high 
temperatures during that season. Forested areas occupy 
50% of the Andalusian territory of which almost 20% 
correspond to natural parks. The mean annual 
investment is over 45 million ecu for prevention and fight 
against forest fires. Every forest fire over the size of 200 
hectares is mapped and introduced in the natural 
resources database of the Andalusian Environmental 
Agency (AEA). 
The fire under study took place in the summer of 1997. 
According to official statistics the fire started on August 
6™ and was extinguished on August 11", affecting and 
area of 938 hectares, of which 695 are forested areas, 49 
hectares are shrubs and 194 hectares are covered by 
pastures. 
1. 2. Ground Data 
Ground data for the present project consisted on the 
CORINE land-cover database (CORINE, 1993; Perdigáo 
and Annoni, 1997). CORINE land-cover has a minimum 
area representation of 25 ha. The classification scheme 
used for CORINE is similar to Anderson's (Anderson, J. 
R. et al., 1976), with three levels or refinement. It offers 
many advantages for analysis of forest fire damages in 
Europe, being the main one that this database is common 
to all European countries. The use of a common 
nomenclature to derive damage caused by forest fires 
solves the complicated problem of data harmonization 
among European countries. 
1.3. Satellite data 
Two types of satellite data were used in this study, NOAA 
AVHRR data, for the detection of the fire, and IRS-1C 
LISS-3 for mapping the burnt area. 
Satellite data of high spatial resolution from the Indian 
sensor LISS-3 sensor on board of the IRS-1C satellite 
were used for burnt area mapping. LISS-3 provides a 
spatial resolution of 23 m bands in the range of the green 
(G), red (R), and near-infrared (NIR) parts of the 
170 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
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