Mapping Burn Severity of the Marking Pen Prescribed Burn in the Seminoe Mountains using pre-and post-fire Landsat Thematic Mapper images

Burn severity of a prescribed fire in the Seminoe Mountains, Wyoming was mapped with Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper images. This prescribed fire, named the Marking Pen Rx Burn, was set by US Bureau of Land Management in May 2011 to diversify and manipulate existing vegetation community characteristics within the proposed project area, and to mitigate already existing Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) issues. Pre-and post-fire Landsat images received through WyomingView were processed in ERDAS Imagine. First, Normalized Burn Ratio Index (NBRI) images for both images were computed. Using the pre- and post-fie NBRI images, the delta NBRI image was derived. Using a combination of image interpretation techniques, expert knowledge, and field data received from two UW researchers, pixels in the delta NBRI image were grouped into the following seven thematic classes: severe burn, severe/medium burn, medium burn, medium/low burn, low burn, low/no burn and no burn.