Application of Hyperion Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Data for Wildfire Fuel Mapping

Fire fuel map is one of the most critical factors for planning and managing the fire hazard and risk. However, fuel mapping is extremely difficult because fuel properties vary at spatial scales, change depending on the seasonal situations and are affected by the surrounding environment. Remote sensing has potential to reduce the uncertainty in mapping fuels and offers the best approach for improving our abilities. Especially, Hyperspectral sensor have a great potential for mapping vegetation properties because of their high spectral resolution. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the potential of mapping fuel properties using Hyperion hyperspectral remote sensing data acquired in April, 2002. Fuel properties are divided into four broad categories: 1) fuel moisture, 2) fuel green live biomass, 3) fuel condition and 4) fuel types. Fuel moisture and fuel green biomass were assessed using canopy moisture, derived from the expression of liquid water in the reflectance spectrum of plants. Fuel condition was assessed using endmember fractions from spectral mixture analysis (SMA). Fuel types were classified by fuel models based on the results of SMA. Although Hyperion imagery included a lot of sensor noise and poor performance in liquid water band, the overall results showed that Hyperion imagery have good potential for wildfire fuel mapping.