Forest and fire monitoring with NOAA AVHRR imagery in the Central African Republic

Each year, millions of tons of forests and savannah all over the world are destroyed. Animal and plant species disappear as a result of deforestation and fires caused by nature and human activity. This drastic reduction in forests has had an adverse impact on the delicate global ecosystem. Using NOAA AHVRR imagery, manipulated by ERDAS Imagine software, a study has been completed to identify, assess and differentiate between forests that remain intact and forests that are on fire, or damaged areas in the Central African Republic. Vector and raster data were overlaid to provide a simple, but effective, Geographical Information System.