Multi-temporal monitoring on forest fire distribution in laos using MODIS data

Forest fire and biomass burning in Indochinese peninsular occurs during dry season at the beginning of the year, including in Laos. According to the continuous observations using MODIS sensor for many years, most of forest fire in Laos occurs at the mountainous area of the northern part of the country. The main reason for these fires is slash-and-burn activity for shifting cultivation and other agricultural-related activities. Simultaneously, this phenomenon is also considered as a natural disaster due to large amount of biomass burning and emission of the greenhouse gases in regional scale that cause global warming and consequently, leading to climate change in the region. In this circumstance, it is necessary to enforce immediate forest fire control and management. However, due to lack of reliable information system which is necessary for planning and decision making, it is difficult to take appropriate decision by the local authorities. Therefore, having the near-real time monitoring system using MODIS data, the authors would like to demonstrate the potential of the system, which can provide daily fire occurrence information in provincial and district levels, which can be observed in different period of time. In this study, statistical analysis of monthly active fire distribution for 2007 to 2010 was implemented. Also, the spatial distribution of active fire in provincial and district level was carried out. The result in provincial level shows that Louangprabang is the province with highest active fire amount for 2007-2009 and Xaignabouli province in 2010. In district level, Nambak district in Louangprabang province, and Phiang district in Xaignabouli are the highest active fire amount districts. The obtained result in different administrative levels can be applied for further study in details, with the association of land use and land cover data and various GIS data including field survey.