A FOREST-FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT USING NOAA-AVHRR-IMAGES IN THE VALENCIAAREA, EASTERN SPAIN

The risk of widespread forest fire has been assessed from information supplied by the AVHRR sensor onboard NOAA satellites, for the area of the Autonomous Community of Valencia in eastern Spain, where several m ajor forest fires occurred in the summer of 1994. The burnt surface da ta were obtained through unsupervised classification of the spectral i nformation of the forest areas, first, from a date previous to the for est lire; and second, from a date following the fire. The methodology for the forest fire risk evaluation is based on the temporal evolution of the NDVI weekly maximum value. Actual forest fires appear to be st atistically correlated with the deduced high risk forest fire areas.