Exploring of Post-Fire Vegetation Growth for the Beachie Creek Fire

In 2020, a chain of several wildfires known collectively as the Labor Day Fires spread rapidly, impacting large areas of Oregon. This has prompted a rapidly rising public interest in wildfire activity and the recovery processes of its affected landscapes. Geospatial technologies have been a key tool in the analysis of post-fire recovery. The research of these fires often includes the use of satellite derived imagery, small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS), geographic information systems (GIS), among other related technologies. The objective of this study is to apply those geospatial technologies to explore post-fire vegetation growth for areas affected by the Beachie Creek fire. To accomplish this objective, Landsat 8 OLI imagery was used to calculate various spectral vegetation indices (SVI), which provide measurements of vegetation health and abundance. Additionally, field data related to the fractional vegetation cover (FVC) was gathered using hemispherical photography. The data were used to generate a regression fit between the SVIs and the FVC. NDVI SVI best displayed the variants and FVC, with an R2 of 0.77. The equation for this regression was used in a GIS to convert the NDVI and to the estimated FVC. When compared to burn severity, we found that FVC is inversely proportional to the level of burn severity three periods post-fire. This trend was expected and aligns well with previous findings in the literature.