A multi-year geographic database of fire affected areas derived from satellite images in the National Parks of Italy

A geographic data base of burned areas in Italian National Parks was built using satellite images. Around five hundred ASTER and SPOT images were acquired for the period 2001-2005 and processed with photo-interpretation, multiple thresholds of spectral transforms (NBR and BAI) and Maximum Likelihood. In five years the area burned is more than 5000 ha (fire average size is 7.7 ha) and the most affected Parks are in Southern Italy. Satellite maps were compared with field observations from the Corpo Forestale dello Stato showing that remote sensing and ground based data provide complementary information. Burned area maps are delivered as layers of a Web Map Service (WMS) of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) INSPIRE compliant.