ENVISAT multisensor data for fire monitoring and impact assessment

Abstract

The European ENVISAT satellite provides both optical and radar measurements of the Earth's surface. In this Letter, three ENVISAT instruments were used to investigate the extent and impact of the forest and peatland fires that devastated large areas in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia in 2002. Reduced spatial resolution MERIS imagery was used to identify simple land cover features and smoke plumes. Fire hotspots were detected by band 3.7 µm of Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) night-time acquisitions, and burnt areas were detected by Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) wide swath radar imagery acquired before and after the fire event. The capability of ENVISAT to acquire data from different sensors simultaneously or within a short period of time greatly enhances the possibilities to monitor fire occurrence and assess fire impact.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank ESA/ESRIN for financial support and free data provision by ESA in the framework of ENVISAT AO 689. Field data collection was done by Adi Jaya, University of Palangkaraya and was funded by the EU 5th Framework Programme (INCO-DEV project STRAPEAT). Special thanks also to Miss Annette Bechteler for providing the Landsat ETM fire scar data.