====== Mapping Burnt Areas in NSW ======

===== Description =====
This project aims to map burnt areas within NSW in a way that is useful for bushwalkers. When vegetation is burnt in a bushfire, it generally removes scrub and makes the area easier to travel through for a few years. Knowing where these recently burnt areas are can then assist in route planning for bushwalks.

|===== Resources =====
^Resource^Example^Used for^
| |[[https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me|RFS Fires Near Me]]|Knowledge of fires occurance|
|Satellite Imagery|[[https://eos.com/landviewer/|EOS Land Viewer]]|Identifing extent of burnt area|
|GIS|[[https://www.qgis.org/en/site/|QGIS]]|Creating burnt area polygons|
|???|???|Viewing burnt area polygons|
|[[https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/fire-history-wildfires-and-prescribed-burns-1e8b6|NPWS Fire History]]| |
| |[[https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/|DEA Hotspots]]|72 hrs of fire activity|

===== Process =====
  * Obtain knowledge for bushfire occurrence - both time and location
    * RFS Fires Near Me will detail any active fires, with either a point or rough polygon indicating its position
    * Looking through old imagery can also lead to burn area identification
  * Capture imagery of burn area
    * Best done with EOS Land Viewer
      * Free service (with some restrictions), account required
      * Provides Landsat and Sentinal imagery (only Landsat 8 and Sentinal-2 are of interest)
      * Limit of 10 'scenes' per day - these are the big tiles of satellite imagery
      * Unlimited downloads of 'scene' data, but resolution reduced to <10mb file
      * Provides individual bands, including IR and NIR, along with pre-set band combinations - use Shortwave Infrared
    * An alternative is the [[https://landlook.usgs.gov/viewer.html|USGS LandLook]]
      * Free service, no account required
      * Also has Landsat and Sentinal imagery
      * Unlimited image views and downloads (need to select geotiff format and geographic spatial reference)
      * Only provides true-colour images, no use of IR or NIR bands
  * Create burn extent polygons
    * Load imagery into QGIS and name file as layer in format of "[yyyy-mm-dd of capture] [Area]" for reference
    * Add polygon by visually inspecting burn area image and capturing full extent within boundary
    * Add field data to polygon such as fire name, area, date of image capture

===== Examples =====
An example can be found through the link below, where a geojson file has been imported into an online map.
[[http://maps.ozultimate.com/?id=1542036099891|Burnt Areas Map - 20181113]]

===== To Do =====
  * Investigate RFS RSS Feed data
    * It appears that they supply multiple feeds relating to fires
    * Their [[http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/feeds/majorIncidents.json|Current Incidents Feed (GeoJSON)]] feed appears to be a geojson file of all current fires, which includes points or polygons
    * See if it's worth collecting this data on a regular basis (say weekly) and then compiling into one big database for reference and / or later analysis