Landsat-8 satellite Imagery to Assess Mediterranean Forests Fire Impact on Land Surface Temperature and Vegetation

Forests are considered vital to earth and humanity, as they clean air, protect us from disasters, and enhance our well-being. However, nowadays forests are frequently exposed to different types of dangers, and fires are the major ones, as they drastically alter the land surface properties, including temperature and vegetation. In this research, we aim to assess the impact of fire on surface temperature and vegetation using the Land Surface Temperature (LST) index and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), respectively. As a study case, we chose two zones of the “Bou Jedyane” forest (Mediterranean region, North of Morocco), one of which was totally affected by a fire occurred in July 2022, with an area of approximately 115 Km², and the other was used as a control. Landsat-8 images from January 2021 to August 2023 were used to extract the considered indices. Then, we computed their percentage of difference between the two zones to assess how the fire changed the temperature and vegetation in the burned area compared to the intact area before, during, and after the fire. Results revealed that fire significantly affected LST and NDVI in the region, as they shifted dramatically from percentage differences ranging between 1% and 7% in 2021 to 27% and 59% for LST and NDVI, respectively, right after the fire outbreak. In the year 2023, we got a decreasing percentage of differences in both LST and NDVI, indicating that the forest is recovering over time. These results demonstrate the impact of fire on two significant elements, the land surface temperature and the vegetation, as well as the forest potential for natural regeneration.