Monitoring coal fires in Datong coalfield using multi-source remote sensing data

Numerous coal fires burn underneath the Datong coalfield because of indiscriminate mining. Landsat TM/ETM, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and infrared thermal imager were employed to monitor underground coal fires in the Majiliang mining area. The thermal field distributions of this area in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2009 were obtained using Landsat TM/ETM. The changes in the distribution were then analyzed to approximate the locations of the coal fires. Through UAV imagery employed at a very high resolution (0.2 m), the texture information, linear features, and brightness of the ground fissures in the coal fire area were determined. All these data were combined to build a knowledge model of determining fissures and were used to support underground coal fire detection. An infrared thermal imager was used to map the thermal field distribution of areas where coal fire is serious. Results were analyzed to identify the hot spot trend and the depth of the burning point.