Eyes on Earth Episode 53 - Remapping Canada's Fire History

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Summary: Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements. In the pre-satellite era, pilots would sometimes fly over the edge of a fire while a passenger recorded its extent. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear about what two researchers from Natural Resources Canada learned when they used Landsat satellite data to rebuild historical fire perimeters. 

Guest:  Ellen Whitman and Rob Skakun, Natural Resources Canada

Host: John Hult

Producer: John Hult

Release date: June 28, 2021

More on Canadian fire mapping: 

• Area burned adjustments to historical wildland fires in Canada
• National Burned Area Composite - Canada
• Canadian National Fire Database