FOREST FIRES STUDY USING REMOTE SENSING AND METEOROLOGICAL INDICATORS. STUDY CASE.

Paula FURTUNĂ, Iulian-Horia HOLOBÂCĂ

ABSTRACT: Fires are the most spectacular natural disturbances affecting forest ecosystem composition, having a devastating effect on the landscape. These can be monitored and analyzed over large areas in an efficient manner in a short time and at low cost by using satellite images and the affected area can be defined using satellite imagery through geographic information systems technology (GIS). The aim of this study is to detect, analyze and quantify land cover changes from production forest fires using Landsat TM imagery, one of the pre-fire and post-fire, studied area corresponds District Forest Cluj. Changes were identified by calculating two indices, NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and NDBR (Normalized Difference Burning Ratio). The causes may be natural or anthropogenic, but weather conditions can have significant contributions to their propagation.

Keywords: forest fires, satellite images, Carrega Index I85/90, remote sensing

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