Assessment of post-fire changes in land surface temperature and surface albedo, and their relation with fire–burn severity using multitemporal MODIS imagery

This study evaluates the effects of the large 2007 Peloponnese (Greece) wildfires on changes in broadband surface albedo (a), daytime land surface temperature (LSTd) and night-time LST (LSTn) using a 2-year post-fire time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite data. In addition, it assesses the potential of remotely sensed a and LST as indicators for fire–burn severity. Immediately after the fire event, mean a dropped up to 0.039 (standard deviation = 0.012) (P <0.001), mean LSTd increased up to 8.4 (3.0) K (P <0.001), and mean LSTn decreased up to –1.2 (1.5) K (P <0.001) for high-severity plots (P <0.001). After this initial alteration, fire-induced changes become clearly smaller and seasonality starts governing the a and LST time series. Compared with the fire-induced changes in a and LST, the post-fire NDVI drop was more persistent in time. This temporal constraint restricts the utility of remotely sensed a and LST as indicators for fire–burn severity. For the times when changes in a and LST were significant, the magnitude of changes was related to fire–burn severity, revealing the importance of vegetation as a regulator of land surface energy fluxes.