Catastrophic Forest Fires in Caramulo Mountains

• Chapter III: Fire Detection and Monitoring
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• Introduction
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• Night Microphysics RGB
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• RGB HRV from MSG/SEVIRI
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• Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
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• FRP-PIXEL product

Night Microphysics RGB

One of the biggest fires in Caramulo started as the result of arson. The first hot spot is visible on the Night Microphysics RGB at 20 August 2013 at 23:30 UTC (Figure 6). The Red beam is associated to the difference of IR 12.0 µm and IR 10.8 µm, the Green beam to difference between IR10.8 µm and IR3.9 µm and the Blue beam to the IR10.8 µm channel. The magenta color results from high values on the red and blue beams and low values on the green beam.

Figure 6: MSG Night Microphysical RGB, 20 August 2013 at 23:30 UTC. Magenta pixels indicate the fires. Source: IPMA.

The main advantage of this RGB is that it allows the detection of hot spots during the night, when VIS images are not available.