The Potential of Channel Specific Reflectance in Landsat 8 OLI Sensor for Retrieving Coal Fire Affected Pixels

Coal fire is a serious threat in major coal producing countries across the globe and poses significant constraints in mining operations, often leading to environmental degradation. The applications of thermal and shortwave infrared remote sensing play a substantial role in systematically detecting and monitoring the coal fire. Over the last few decades, researchers have extensively examined the importance of spectral radiance for retrieving reliable pixel-integrated temperature threshold to delineate coal fire from its background. However, such an assumption does not necessarily consider the local information, thereby leading to difficulty in isolating the actual coal fire affected pixels. Therefore, we propose to utilise the channel specific reflectance to retrieve the thermally anomalous pixels in coal fire related applications using Landsat 8 OLI data. This paper explores the practicability of incorporating the active fire detection technique using channel specific reflectances based on both fixed and contextual thresholds in the Jharia coalfield, India.