Burns in areas of the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

The fires have caused damage to landscape elements, destruction of fauna and flora, in addition to deteriorating soil fertility. The objective of the present work is the detection and quantification of extensive areas affected by fire events through optical sensors, verifying the recurrence of fires in Cerrado locations from remote sensing images. The study area was the micro-region of Barreiras-Bahia, which has approximately 53,000 km², comprising seven municipalities: Barreiras, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, São Desidério, Formosa do Rio Preto, Riachão das Neves, Baianópolis and Catolândia In order to carry out the work, the heat focus data acquired at the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) were used, from the NOAA-19 satellite; rainfall data were made available by the National Water Agency (ANA) and the National Meteorological Institute (INMET). To analyze the density of the heat sources, the Kernel density method was used, and its relationship with precipitation between 2015 and 2019 was analyzed. With the data referring to the average annual precipitation in the Barreiras microregion, the Inverse method was used Weighted Distance (IDW) to generate rainfall index maps. It is concluded that when comparing the occurrences of heat sources with the annual average precipitated, in each year, it is possible to indicate that the amount of precipitation registered in the region, even if asymmetrically, may have influenced the occurrence of fire sources. Although when comparing the spatial distribution of the heat sources with the spatial distribution of precipitation, there is no clear relationship between both, since the temporal distribution of precipitation can influence this process, in addition to the occurrence of fires by intentional, accidental or criminal practices.