SENTINEL 2 IMAGERY AND BURN RATIOS FOR ASSESSING THE JULY 5, 2021 WILDFIRES SEVERITY IN THE REGION OF KHENCHELA (NORTHEAST ALGERIA)

Wildfire events are majeure natural risks occurring in multiple ecosystems worldwide, and lead to significant damages on their human, ecological and socioeconomic components. This research interested on evaluating and mapping the recent and exceptional wildfires occurred in the Aures Mounts System near Ain Mimoun in July 5, 2021. Multidates Sentinel 2 images, the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio dNBR and its Relativized dNBR (RdNBR) have been used for extract and evaluate the recently burned areas. Results reveal that he July 5 wildfires lead to the loss of 6,607 ha (9 %) of Aleppo pine forest cover and municipalities of Tamza and Chelia were more damaged, with respectively 4,143 and 2,166 ha of burned superficies. In addition to the high-vulnerability to fire risk occurrence, essentially due to topographic and morphological features, the study area exhibited also favoring climatic features before and during the fire event occurrence, high daily temperatures and high variable wind directions were prominent factors in accelerating the fire spreading and increasing the fire extent. This study concludes that Sentinel 2, dNBR and especially RdNBR are effective geoinformatic data and indices for assessing, classifying and mapping burn severity extent due to wildfire events. To attenuate damages, it is necessary to adopt risk mitigation plans based on efficient measures to be applied before, during and after the fire events occurrence.