2012 Waldo Canyon Fire and Vegetation Recovery from NDVI Analysis¶
On June 23, 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire ignited 4 miles northwest of Colorado Springs, CO. Strong erratic winds, abundant fuel, and extremely dry conditions in the region allowed for this fire to spread rapidly and intensify over the course of 18 days. This fire burned a total area of 18,247 acres in the Pikes Peak National Forest and Colorado Springs area. At the time, the Waldo Canyon Fire was the most destructive fire in Colorado history burning 346 homes, amassing 352.6 million dollars in damages, and killing 2 people. A BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) team provided an assessment on the severity of the fire within the wildfire footprint, reporting 41% low/unburned, 40% moderate severity, and 19% high severity. Colorado Springs, CO is located within a dry-semi arid climatic region. Precipitation can be inconsistent in this region especially in the summer months as rainfall is driven by the setup of the North American Monsson. The 2012 summer was extreme in Colorado with record average temperatures set in Denver, with 27 days over 90° F. In this study, I investigate the use of satellite derived NDVI datasets to evaluate the recovery of vegetation following the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire.
Aqua Satellite Mission and MODIS Instrument¶
On May 4th, 2002, NASA successfully launched the AQUA satellite mission. This mission was developed to collect high resolution datasets for the evaluation of changes in earth’s water cycle (evaporation, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, and land ice). The AQUA satellite mission was originally developed for a 6-year deployment, but remains active, and has continued collecting valuable datasets. The AQUA satellite is equipped with the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument that collects data on vegetation Index products as well (NDVI and EVI). NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) datasets are generated from the Near-infrared and red bands. The MODIS NDVI data sets used in this study are generated on 16 day and 1-month intervals at multiple spatial resolutions (250-meter, 500meter, 1 km, .05 degree). The Vegetation indices are generated from atmospheric-corrected reflectance in the red, near-infrared, and blue wavebands. The MODIS sensor has a built-in algorithms that remove low quality pixels through a compositing method. This allows researchers to quantify the abundance and presence of live green vegetation. This is especially useful for the analysis of areas impacted by forest fire. Datasets from pre and post fire can be used to evaluate the change in vegetation, quantify burn severity, and document recovery post fire.
Information from:
Data Product Citation:¶
Didan, K. (2021). MODIS/Aqua Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 250m SIN Grid V061. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. Accessed 2023-10-04 from https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD13Q1.061. Accessed October 4, 2023.
Software Citation:¶
AppEEARS Team. (2023). Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS). Ver. 3.38. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), USGS/Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. Accessed October 4, 2023. https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov
Successional vegetation "post fire specialist" have been slow to repopulate the Waldo Canyon fire burn area 11 years post fire.¶
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