Fathertime2000 t1_j5ujs2b wrote on January 25, 2023 at 5:48 PM

I am a graduate student at NCSU pursuing a Master of Forestry. I am wondering if there is a systematic way of assessing fire severity following a wildfire event? For a project last semester I used FIA data to compare pre- and post-fire conditions, but this is only possible in areas that have already been sampled.

Prof_Fire OP t1_j5um91z wrote on January 25, 2023 at 6:03 PM

Good question! Fire severity is a great way of attempting to quantify the variable impacts of fire. From a remote sensing perspective (typically satellite), there are multiple techniques that have been developed to identify and map patterns of post-fire burn severity. Many of these techniques use multispectral satellite sensors. The normalized burn ratio (NBR) and its variations (dNBR) come to mind. There is even a national (US) archive of burn severity maps available for free online from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project led by the USGS (https://www.mtbs.gov/). For assessing burn severity from the ground, you might consider looking into a technique called the Composite Burn Index (CBI). Link for more info here: https://burnseverity.cr.usgs.gov/products/cbi.