Canyon Wildfire Assessment at Vandenberg Air Force Base

I worked on this project recently with Haoyu Li at Clark University. Vandenberg Air Force Base had a quick burning fire pass by one of its rocket launch pads this past September. The fire started by an unknown source in the hills behind the launchpad and at its peak had over 1,000 fire fighters working to contain the fire. We used Landsat 8 for Pre and Post fire imagery, classification, and for NBR. We created training sites and used Maximum Likelihood Classification.

Pre Fire: Oct 1, 2015 Landsat 8

Post Fire: Oct. 3, 2016 Landsat 8

Pre Fire Maximum Likelihood Classification

Post Fire Maximum Likelihood Classification

Normalized Burn Ratio or NBR
Landsat 8 uses bands 5 and 7

Shows burn severity and change 

Source: Landsat 8

             Landscape Toolbox: Normalized Burn Ratio

Lake Shasta Water Levels Rising

The drought in California has been drying up reservoirs across the state over the last few years. This year was predicted to have a large El Nino effect this winter and spring, but it has not produced as much as hoped. Until earlier this month it had been a typical, almost average winter with snow levels averaging around 90% across the state of California. Over the last few weeks several rain and snow storms have passed through Northern California helping Lake Shasta rise to 86% capacity with over 1.8 million acre-feet of water pouring in since the middle of January. El Nino has been very kind to Northern California as of late and we hope it will continue! Check out the slider below to see the difference between water levels at Lake Shasta from last August and its current condition.

Sources: California Dept of Water Resources Data Exchange Center
Imagery: Landsat 8 via Google Earth Engine