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Thermal Remote Sensing of Active Vegetation Fires and Biomass Burning Events

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Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing

Part of the book series: Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing ((RDIP,volume 17))

Abstract

Thermal remote sensing is widely used in the detection, study, and management of biomass burning occurring in open vegetation fires. Such fires may be planned for land management purposes, may occur as a result of a malicious or accidental ignition by humans, or may result from lightning or other natural phenomena. Under suitable conditions, fires may spread rapidly and extensively, affecting the land cover properties of large areas, and releasing a wide variety of gases and particulates directly into Earth’s troposphere. On average, around 3.4 % of the Earth’s terrestrially vegetated area burns annually in this way. Vegetation fires inevitably involve high temperatures, so thermal remote sensing is well suited to its identification and study. Here we review the theoretical basis of the key approaches used to (1) detect actively burning fires; (2) characterize sub-pixel fires; and (3) estimate fuel consumption and smoke emissions. We describe the types of airborne and spaceborne systems that deliver data for use with these active fire thermal remote sensing methods, and provide some examples of how operational fire management and fire research have both benefited from the resulting information. We commence with a brief review of the significance and magnitude of biomass burning, both within the ‘whole Earth’ system and in more regional situations, aiming to highlight why thermal remote sensing has become so important to the study and management of open vegetation burning.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank everyone who provided figures for use in the chapter, the funding agencies who supported the work covered here, and the reviewers for their supportive and useful comments. Martin Wooster was partly supported by the NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (UK) and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement no. 283576 (MACC-II project). Alistair Smith is partly supported by NASA under award number NNX11AO24G and the National Science Foundation under award number EPS-0814387.

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  1. Department of Geography, King’s College London (KCL), Strand, London, UK

    Martin J. Wooster, Joshua Johnston & Patrick Freeborn

  2. Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Gareth Roberts

  3. Department of Forest Resources, College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Alistair M. S. Smith

  4. Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada

    Joshua Johnston

  5. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome, Italy

    Stefania Amici

  6. US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Moscow Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Moscow, ID, USA

    Andrew T. Hudak

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Correspondence to Martin J. Wooster .

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  1. , Earth Observation Center, EOC, German Aerospace Center, DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen, Wessling, 82234, Germany

    Claudia Kuenzer

  2. , Earth Observation Center, EOC, German Aerospace Center, DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen, Wessling, 82234, Germany

    Stefan Dech

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Wooster, M.J. et al. (2013). Thermal Remote Sensing of Active Vegetation Fires and Biomass Burning Events. In: Kuenzer, C., Dech, S. (eds) Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing. Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6639-6_18

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