Mapping and tracking forest burnt areas in the indio maiz biological reserve using sentinel-3 SLSTR and VIIRS-DNB imagery

Wildfires are considered one of the most major hazards and environmental issues worldwide. Recently, Earth observation satellite (EOS) sensors have proven to be effective for wildfire detection, although the quality and usefulness of the data are often hindered by cloud presence. One practical workaround is to combine datasets from multiple sensors. This research presents a methodology that utilizes data of the recently-launched Sentinel-3 sea and land surface temperature radiometer (S3-SLSTR) to reflect its applicability for detecting wildfires. In addition, visible infrared imaging radiometer suite day night band (VIIRS-DNB) imagery was introduced to assure day-night tracking capabilities. The wildfire event in the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve, Nicaragua, during 3–13 April 2018, was the study case. Six S3-SLSTR images were processed to compute spectral indices, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized difference water index (NDWI), and the normalized burn ratio (NBR), to perform image segmentation for estimating the burnt area. The results indicate that 5870.7 ha of forest was affected during the wildfire, close to the 5945 ha reported by local authorities. In this study, the fire expansion was delineated and tracked in the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve using a modified fast marching method on nighttime-sensed temporal VIIRS-DNB. This study shows the importance of S3-SLSRT for wildfire monitoring and how it can be complemented with VIIRS-DNB to track burning biomass at daytime and nighttime.