Analysis of the forest fire in the 'Bohemian Switzerland' National Park using Landsat-8 and Sentinel-5P in Google Earth Engine

The recent increase of the air temperature due to the global climate change is considered as one of the important reasons for the wildfires increase in the world, even in areas where the wildfires are not that common. In addition to the various physical damages adversely affecting the ecological balance, harmful gases and solid particles are released into the atmosphere due to wildfires, causing serious health problems. In this study, impacts of the most serious forest fire in modern history of the country lasting 16 days from 23rd of July 2022 in the National Park" Bohemian Switzerland" in the D & ecaron;& ccaron;& iacute;n district, Czech Republic, were investigated using remote sensing satellite datasets by cloud-based Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The normalized difference moisture index (NDMI), normalized burn ratio index (NBR), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land surface temperature (LST) and soil moisture index (SMI) were calculated from Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLI and TIRS) dataset for the dates of 31st October 2021, 18th June 2022, and 31st October 2022. Relationship of the remote sensing indices were calculated to estimate the impacts of the wildfire. Furthermore, distribution of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was extracted using Sentinel-5P TROPOMI (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument) to observe changes before and after the forest fire in the study region. The burnt area approximately 13.20 km2 from the total area of 79.28 km2 was detected using different time series of the remote sensing indices in the national park.