Multitemporal burnt area mapping using Landsat 8: Merging multiple burnt area indices to highlight burnt areas

Abstract

Wild fires may be beneficial to some ecological functions, however their negative impacts far exceed their benefits. This is because wildfires are a threat to the natural environment, wild life and their carbon emissions contribute to green house gases. These, makes the study of wildfires important. The study of fires is in three phases. Firstly it is forecasting, which uses Fire Danger Index (FDI), secondly it is the mapping of active fires and thirdly, the mapping of burnt areas to access the impact. The focus of this paper is burnt area mapping. The objective is to demonstrate how multiple burnt area indices were merged to highlight burnt areas.