Ola Ali Merhej ^*(1),Mahmoud Kamel Ali ⁽¹⁾, Ali Saker Thabeet ⁽²⁾, Yunis Mohammad Idress⁽³⁾ and Lama Saleh Essa ⁽⁴⁾

1. Forestry & Ecology Department- Agriculture Faculty- Tishreen University- Syria. 
2. Natural resources Department- Agriculture Faculty- Aleppo University- Syria.
3. General Organization of Remote Sensing- Damascus- Syria.
4. Engineer- Forestry Department, Directorate of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Latakia,

^{( *} Corresponding author, mobile phone: 0932044199 mail: olamerhej@gmail.com)

Abstract

Forest fires are a frequent phenomenon in the Mediterranean forests in general and cause major changes in forest cover and climate. The season fire in the Syrian coast forests extends from June to October, but its effects may last for many years. In this study, two images of the Sentinel 2A satellite were used to determine the area and severity of the Farzala fire in Syria, which began on October 13 and was extinguished on October 15, 2019. NBR index values ​​were calculated from each image separately, and then dNBR was calculated to extract the burned areas and determine the fire severity. The results showed that the fire spread over a total area of ​​(871.27) hectares, of which (166.298) hectares were of high severity. The accuracy of dNBR index in determining the area of ​​the fire was (87.61%). On the other hand, the post-fire NBR value for the burned area ranged from -0.73 to 0.1. The study concluded the importance of using the dNBR index derived from Sentinel 2A satellite imagery in determining the severity of forest fires and setting fire borders.

Key Words: NBR, Sentinel, Remote Sensing, Forest Fires, Latakia, Syria.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF