Application of remote sensing and geographic information systems to forest fire hazard mapping

Digitally processed Thematic Mapper data were integrated with other layers of geographic information to derive a forest fire hazard map. The test area was located in the mediterranean coast of Spain, which is one of the countries most affected by forest fires in Europe.The area suffered a severe forest fire in 1985. Therefore, comparison between the predicted hazard and the actual burned area was possible. More than 22% of pixels with high hazard values in the whole study area were burned by the fire, while only 3.74% of those with low hazard values were actually burned.