Assessment of Small-Extent Forest Fires in Semi-Arid Environment in Jordan Using Sentinel-2 and Landsat Sensors Data

The objective of this study was to evaluate the separability potential of Sentinel-2A (MultiSpectral Instrument, MSI) and Landsat (Operational Land Imager, OLI and Thermal Infrared Sensor, TIRS) derived indices for detecting small-extent (<25 ha) forest fires areas and severity degrees. Three remote sensing indices [differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR), differenced Normalized Different Vegetation Index (dNDVI), and differenced surface temperature (dTST)] were used at three forest fires sites located in Northern Jordan; Ajloun (total burned area 23 ha), Dibbeen (burned area 10.5), and Sakeb (burned area 15 ha). Compared to ground reference data, Sentinel-2 MSI was able to delimit the fire perimeter more precisely than Landsat-8. The accuracy of detecting burned area (area of coincidence) in Sentinel-2 was 7%-26% higher that Landsat-8 OLI across sites. In addition, Sentinel-2 reduced the omission area by 28%-43% and the commission area by 6%-38% compared to Landsat-8 sensors. Higher accuracy in Sentinel-2 was attributed to higher spatial resolution and lower mixed pixel problem across the perimeter of burned area (mixed pixels within the fire perimeter for Sentinel-2, 8.5%-13.5% vs. 31%-52% for Landsat OLI). In addition, dNBR had higher accuracy (higher coincidence values and less omission and commission) than dNDVI and dTST. In terms of fire severity degrees, dNBR (the best fire index candidate) derived from both satellites sensors were only capable of detecting the severe spots severely-burned with producer accuracy >70%. In fact, the dNBR-Sentinel-2/Landsat-8 overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient for classifying fire severity degree were less than 70% across the studied sites, except for Sentinel-dNBR in Dibbeen (72.5%). In conclusion, Sentinel-dNBR and Landsat promise to delimitate forest fire perimeters of small-scale (<25 ha) areas, but further remotely-sensed techniques are require (e.g., Landsat-Sentinel data fusion) to improve the fire severity-separability potential.

Automated summary

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Sentinel-2A (MultiSpectral Instrument, MSI) and Landsat (Operational Land Imager, OLI and Thermal Infrared Sensor, TIRS) derived indices in detecting small-extent forest fires and severity degrees. Sentinel-2 performed better than Landsat-8 in accurately delimiting the fire perimeter and detecting the burned area. The dNBR index showed higher accuracy in detecting fire severity degrees compared to dNDVI and dTST. However, further remote sensing techniques, such as Landsat-Sentinel data fusion, are needed to improve the potential for separating fire severity.