The role of vegetation in UK upland wildfires: Risk, Resilience, and Remote Sensing

Wildfires are becoming a growing concern in the UK, as climate change increases the occurrence and persistence of periods of hot, dry weather. Vegetation type and management play an important but contested role in UK fire risk and resilience, and questions remain over the best ways to prevent large fires developing. Remote sensing can provide vital data on fire size, severity, and recovery times, but method effectiveness is dependent on understanding specific ecosystems. This research uses ground validation of four wildfires in the UK Peak District National Park to deliver insights which improve interpretation of satellite data in wildfire monitoring. These insights are then applied to a three-year remote sensing database of large wildfires in England and Wales, to give novel results on the links between vegetation type and management, and fire size and severity. Ecosystem resilience and recovery is further explored through analysing the vegetation growth post-fire at three of the four Peak District study sites. This project therefore develops and validates remote sensing methodology in wildfire research by combining field data with satellite imagery to yield new understandings of the relationships between vegetation and fire.