Development and Validation of Fire Damage-Severity Indices in the Framework of the PREFER Project

Abstract

PREFER (space-based information support for prevention and recovery of forest fires emergency in the Mediterranean area) is one of the Copernicus FP7 Emergency projects funded in 2012. It is uniquely devoted to forest pre- and post-fire management. The overall goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate a preoperational portfolio of products, based on Earth observation data for helping fire management on a Mediterranean scale. Samples of the PREFER information products are available to stakeholders through the project Geoserver (prefer.cgspace.it). The project foresees the utilization of satellite images’ optical and SAR at medium (MODIS—moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer), high (Landsat, Spot-Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre), and very high (KOMPSAT—Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite, RapidEye, Pleiades, COSMO-SkyMed—constellation of small satellites for Mediterranean basin observation, and TanDEM-X—TerraSAR-X add on for digital elevation measurement) spatial resolution, and a refresh rate of the products varying from high (days) to low (twice a month) to very low (once a year). The present paper is devoted to introducing the methodology developed for computing one of the project product, i.e., the damage-severity map. These maps provide the level of damage caused in vegetated areas by fires. Further, the paper aims at presenting the results of the validation of such product carried out during the first semester of 2015. The methodology is based on the utilization of Landsat8/OLI images.