Wildfire Monitoring is one of the new directions being prepared for the Monitoring section of the Geohazards Exploitation Platform. The workflow was initially applied in the CopernicusLAC context, where Terradue deployed wildfire monitoring services to support the analysis of fire danger, active fire information, burned areas, burn severity, and post-fire vegetation recovery. The same logic is now being brought into GEP, adapting the approach to the platform’s geohazards community, processing services, and data discovery environment.
The goal is to provide a dedicated entry point for users interested in wildfire-related Earth Observation workflows, from event discovery and EO data access to impact assessment and recovery monitoring.
Image: Wildfire monitoring concept, from fire danger and active fire context to burned area mapping, burn severity, and vegetation recovery: EO data and processing services support the full wildfire monitoring cycle
From CopernicusLAC experience to GEP workflows
In CopernicusLAC, the wildfire workflow was designed around a dedicated dashboard for mapping wildfire events, fire danger, burned areas, and post-fire vegetation recovery.
Two complementary monitoring modes were tested.
The first was a near-real-time monitoring mode, focused on regional wildfire monitoring across Central America, Panama and Colombia. In this mode, the wildfire services were executed to provide users with access to EO data, hotspots, burned area mapping, burned area severity, fire danger, and vegetation recovery information for ongoing events.
The second was a past-event monitoring mode, using the Chile 2023 wildfire around the Concepción area as a demonstration case. In this mode, the wildfire services were pre-executed over the event period to simulate the full monitoring cycle, from fire occurrence to impact assessment and post-fire recovery analysis.
These two modes are useful for GEP because they cover both operational needs: following active fire situations as new data become available, and analysing past wildfire events in a reproducible way for validation, reporting, training, and workflow improvement.
The aim is not to duplicate a separate platform, but to reuse the experience, service logic, and processing components in a GEP context.
What the Fire Monitoring entry point will support
Wildfire monitoring benefits from combining several types of satellite-derived information. Optical and thermal data can support active fire detection, burned area mapping, and vegetation recovery assessment, while SAR-based change products can provide complementary information where optical data are limited by clouds, smoke, or acquisition timing.
The future GEP Fire Monitoring entry point is expected to support workflows such as:
- fire danger context, using environmental and EO-derived variables to highlight areas with higher fire risk;
- hotspot and active fire information, where suitable thermal observations are available;
- burned area mapping, using Sentinel-2 and related optical indicators;
- burned area severity analysis, using NBR, dNBR, RBR and related spectral indices;
- vegetation recovery monitoring, using multi-temporal NDVI and post-fire recovery indicators;
- surface-change analysis, using SAR or optical change detection where relevant.
Image: Fire monitoring service chain, showing how EO data inputs and GEP processing services can generate hotspots, burned area, severity, change, recovery, and time-series products.
Relevant GEP services
Several GEP services may support fire-related workflows, depending on data availability and the analysis objective:
- Hotspot and active fire information, using Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-2 observations where suitable thermal or optical acquisitions are available;
- Burned Area Mapping identifies burned areas from optical observations using an adapted version of the FireCCISFD20 burned-area algorithm.
- Burned Area Severity estimates fire impact using Sentinel-2 optical imagery and burn-sensitive spectral indices such as NBR, dNBR or RBR.
- Optical Spectral Index Generation supports NBR, NDVI and other indices useful for burn and vegetation analysis.
- NDVI Change Detection compares pre- and post-event vegetation conditions and can help assess vegetation loss or recovery.
- SAR-based change detection can provide complementary surface-change information using Sentinel-1 data.
- STACK combines multi-temporal and multi-sensor raster layers into a common grid for integrated analysis.
These services are listed as possible analysis options. This does not imply that they have already been run for a specific fire event.
What users will be able to do
As the Fire Monitoring entry point evolves, users may be able to:
- inspect recent or historical wildfire events;
- discover relevant Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, Sentinel-1 and contextual datasets;
- access burned area, burn severity and vegetation recovery products;
- compare pre-event, event and post-event observations;
- combine raster products into reusable impact and recovery layers;
- use outputs in dashboards, GIS tools, reports, or downstream analysis environments.
Image: Fire Monitoring entry point on GEP, showing how users can inspect wildfire layers, severity indicators, vegetation recovery charts, and generated products from a single dashboard.
Coming next
The Monitoring → Fires section will be used to share updates on the future fire monitoring app and related GEP workflows.
As the service evolves, we expect to use this section to publish:
- short explanations of fire monitoring workflows;
- examples based on public EO data and selected wildfire case studies;
- guidance on which GEP services to use for burned area, severity, change detection and vegetation recovery;
- updates on prototype interfaces and future access options.
We will update this topic as the Fire Monitoring entry point progresses and more workflows become available. Click Watching at the bottom of the topic if you would like to receive notifications when new information is posted.