Fire suppression difficulty estimation and mapping in a Mediterranean landscape using Landsat-8 imagery and spatial fire behavior analysis

Increased fire activity, related both to human activities and climate change, necessitates effective fire prevention and suppression strategies. The main purpose of this study is to model and map the fire suppression difficulty in a typical Mediterranean landscape, under three different weather and fuel moisture conditions and scenarios, by employing satellite imagery and landscape fire behavior modeling. The proposed approach could allow fire managers to organize the prevention and management of fire-fighting activities more efficiently, by implementing simple and easy-to-use risk and operational fire suppression difficulty indices. The development of common methodological approaches could foster cooperation between fire management authorities that would also maximize the efficiency of the fire-fighting procedures.