Tools for assessing areas affected by forest fires

Wildfires cause every year a number of social and environmental damage in the Mediterranean basin and elsewhere. Procedures to prevent increases in slope erosion rates and pollution of water reserves are usually proposed after fire extinction, as well as a host of suppression and rehabilitation treatments. This paper presents tools for assessing and placing protection and rehabilitation treatments. With this objective, mapping-based models will be implemented in order to help technicians, researchers or forestry staff to identify the most vulnerable areas. Fire-affected areas are classified according to the degree of soil burn severity, with the help of satellite images (Landsat-TM, 30 m), soil information, the characteristics of plant communities and land use. Also, with this information, ecosystem vulnerability is modeled at the same spatial resolution. Furthermore, the model allows evaluating the temporal response of the different rehabilitation treatments or measures implemented. This experience was carried out in Formile Fire (Boulder, CO; USA), in September 2010. A series of measurements to reduce soil erosion risk are proposed, by selecting a number of areas according to soil burn severity and applying aero-mulching treatments (straw and wood chips). This treatment was repeated twice a year and evaluated a year later, with satisfactory results in the mulching-treated areas. The quality of the results depends on the update, quality and resolution of data required for the construction of the data layers included in the model.