Identification of Forest Fire Affected Area and Burn Severity Analysis in Bankati Forest Block of Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh Using Geospatial Techniques

Abstract

ABSTRACT

In the present study analysis of forest fire location is based on MODIS/ VIIRS satellite data.  Fire alert locations were downloaded from the forest fire portal http://fsi.nic.in/index.php of Forest Survey of India (FSI), Dehradun. Latest Sentinel satellite images pre and post fire was used for mapping extent area and burn severity analysis of forest fire affected because of its 5^th day revisit period. Burn severity analysis has been done through NBR and dNBR indices supported by field survey. 

In Dudhwa National Park total 99 fire points were found and out of which 07 were large and 92 were small fire points was observed in Bankati-1 forest block of Dudhwa National Park fire affected area was estimated as 134.17 ha. The forest type and forest density wise mapping was also done and found that 100.20 ha area is covered with grassland and 33.97 ha area is covered with Miscellaneous forest.

In Bankati-1 forest block low severity, moderate low severity and moderate high severity was observed but in major part of forest block, Moderate- low severity is noticed, which covers about 70.13ha area besides that Moderate-high severity and Low severity also observed and covers 56.201 ha and 7.841 ha area respectively. The investigation demonstrated that remotely sensed data is an important source to map the fire affected areas in forest and assessment of burn severity.