Forest Fire Danger/Risk Forecasting: A Remote Sensing Approach ...

• Main Author: Ahmed, M. Razu
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Schulich School of Engineering 2020
• Subjects: 2016 Horse River Fire; forest fire danger condition; grid data; human-caused ignition source; land surface temperature; moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer MODIS; natural hazards and disasters; normalized difference vegetation index NDVI; normalized difference water index NDWI; NRT; structural damages; swath data; very high spatial resolution; wildland-urban interface WUI; WorldView-2; Remote Sensing; Environmental Sciences; Fort McMurray; Canada; Horse River
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/prism/37640; https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/111739

Forest/wildland fires are natural disasters that create a significant threat to the communities living in the vicinity of the forested landscape. To minimize the risk concerning resiliency of those urban communities to forest fires, my overall objective was to develop primarily remote sensing (RS)-based models assessing potential risks at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) and making predictions of danger conditions in the environs forest/vegetation. I investigated the risks associated with WUI for the Fort McMurray community and danger conditions in the northern part of Alberta, Canada. For developing the risk modelling framework at WUI, I employed primarily a WorldView-2 satellite image acquired on June 06, 2016. I estimated structural damages due to the devastating 2016 Horse River wildland fire (HRF) that entered the community on May 03, 2016. Besides, I analyzed the presence of vegetation at the WUI to identify the associated risks according to the FireSmart Canada guidelines. My remote sensing-based ...