Montane Forest Fire Detection and Post-fire Forest development (A Case Study in the Majella National Park, Italy)

During the great wildfire event in South East Europe in the summer of 2007, a fire occurred in the montane forest belt of the Majella National Park, Italy. The fire was the largest recorded in history and the only one recorded in a beech forest in the park and Europe. The management of the park expressed its interest to use satellite remote sensing data and techniques as an alternative method to map fire scars and to assess the effect of the fire on plant biodiversity and regeneration. The study asked the following questions: (1) What are the location, time, severity and distribution of these fires? (2) Can fire scars in the montane forest belt be mapped accurately using medium resolution satellite imagery? (3) What is the species composition and diversity of tree seedlings and herbaceous plants in post-fire and in unburned beech forest and black pine plantation? (4) Does beech and black pine regenerate after forest fire?
The MODIS Terra and Aqua active fire products were successfully used to determine the dates, location, time, severity (radiative power) and distribution of the fires more accurately than by the conventional field methods applied by park management. Fire scars in beech forest and black pine plantation could be mapped with sufficient overall accuracy (87.8%) using ASTER imagery of May 2008 based on supervised maximum likelihood classification and ground truth. Species composition and diversity of tree seedlings and herbaceous plants were recorded using randomly selected sites and line transects at each site. Species diversity was analyzed using two species diversity indices, Shannon and Simpson.
Species diversity of tree seedlings did not differ significantly between post-fire and unburned beech forest. However, there was a significant difference in species diversity of herbaceous plants between post-fire and unburned beech forest. The study also showed that beech can regenerate after forest fire through seedling and stem/root sprouts. In the black pine plantation species diversity of tree seedlings was higher in the unburned black pine plantation and there was no significant difference in species diversity of herbaceous plants between post-fire and unburned black pine plantation. Natural regeneration of black pine after forest fire was absent. Comparing the two forest types; species diversity of tree seedlings was higher in unburned black pine plantation than the unburned beech forest. However there was no significant difference in species diversity of tree seedlings between post-fire black pine plantation and post-fire beech forest. Management implications of the study are discussed.