Global Monitoring of Post-Fire Forest Recovery Using Satellite-Derived Vegetation Indicators

Wildfires pose a major threat to forest ecosystems worldwide, leading to substantial losses in ecosystem services. Since forests play a critical role in climate change mitigation and climate regulation, quantifying the rate and completeness of post-fire recovery is essential for assessing long-term ecosystem functionality. However, robust approaches to characterize the timing and trajectories of functional recovery after fire remain limited, particularly at large spatial and temporal scales.
Satellite remote sensing provides a unique opportunity to address this challenge by enabling globally consistent, long-term monitoring of post-fire vegetation dynamics across different land cover types, complementing the limited spatial and temporal coverage of ground-based observations. Based on the Fire Climate Change Initiative (Fire CCI) dataset, fire events are identified globally and used to define the spatial and temporal framework for the analysis. For each fire event, post-fire recovery trajectories are constructed from satellite-derived vegetation indicators capturing complementary aspects of forest condition and ecosystem functioning, including vegetation greenness (NDVI, EVI), canopy structure (LAI), and photosynthetic activity (FPAR). 
These recovery trajectories allow post-fire recovery rates and relative recovery levels to be quantified and compared across land cover types at the global scale, revealing spatial differences and variability in recovery dynamics. The framework thus provides a scalable approach to assess long-term changes in forest ecosystem functionality following wildfires and to evaluate how post-fire recovery dynamics vary across land cover types and over time.