Estimation of burned areas from fires in the province of Córdoba during August 2020 using multispectral images

Abstract

During August 2020 several fire sources in the province of Córdoba caused the loss of more than 80 thousand hectares of native forests. The purpose of this paper is to describe how spectral information from NOAA’s remote satellite sensors such as MODIS, VIIRS, Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 and 3 can provide technical resources for “quasi real time” monitoring of the evolution and impact on these kind of emergencies.
Wildfires are one of the biggest sources of environmental and ecological issues worldwide. In Argentina they cause the annual loss of thousands of hectares of native forests and other types of vegetation. They also destroy valuable economic resources, generating an immense economic damage and modifying significantly the ecosystems, being one of the main causes of land cover transformation.