Forest Fire Analysis with Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery: The Case of Mati (Greece) in 2018

Abstract

Due to the damage they cause to the environment, forest fires have an important place among the disasters that occur around world. In recent years, forest fires have increased in frequency, size and intensity, especially in Mediterranean countries. Preventive measures should be taken and risk reduction should be implemented so that natural or man-made risks do not turn into a catastrophe disaster. After a disaster commences, the implementation of evacuation plans for the settlement, when necessary, is of great importance in this context. One of these forest fires started on July 23, 2018 in the popular holiday resort of Mati in Greece. Mati located within the borders of the Attica region and 29km east of the Athens, was examined within the scope of this study. The forest fire that took place in the said regions affected a very large area and the fires caused the death of 103 people and the destruction of approximately 4,000 houses, including thousands of vehicles. In the study, data processing and evaluation using Sentinel-2 satellite images from the Copernicus program of the European Space Agency (ESA), SNAP software, an open source software developed by ESA and the ArcMap program were used for subsequent statistical calculations. As a result, it was determined how much the area was burned with the help of Sentinel-2 satellites and a study was carried out on the mapping of the affected areas. In addition, the relationship between disaster risk reduction activities has been examined.