Analysis on the Fire Progression and Severity Variation of the Massive Forest Fire Occurred in Uljin, Korea, 2022

Abstract

Analysis of the progression of forest fires is critical in understanding fire regimes and managing the risk of active fires. Major fire events in Korea mostly occur in the eastern mountainous areas (Gangwon Province), where the wind and moisture conditions are prone to fire in the late winter season. Despite the significance of the fire events in the area both in terms of frequency and severity, their spatial progression characteristics and their dependency on forest types have not been sufficiently analyzed so far, particularly with satellite data. This study first derived the severity map for the Uljin fire which occurred in March 2022, using a series of satellite images acquired over the fire period with very high frequency (every 5 days), and analyzed the characteristics of spatio-temporal progression in terms of forest types. The analysis revealed that the core fire area expanded very rapidly in the first few days, followed by an intensification phase that elevated severity in the active areas with marginal expansion in the peripheral areas. The analysis of the progression showed that the fire did not expand selectively by the forest type, despite the clear difference in their severity levels in the burned areas, where coniferous forest exhibited 3 times higher severity than deciduous forest.