2023 Forest Fire Mapping and Interpretation

Natural disturbances, such as forest fires, have a major impact on forest cover in Alberta. As a result, it is necessary to capture the extent and attributes of the fires so that the impact of the fires upon natural resources can be determined. Fire boundaries are used to assess the impact of fires on the Annual Allowable Cut, to plan salvage logging and for future landscape level modeling. Forest Stewardship and Trade Branch (FSTB) normally captures the fire boundaries in-house, as per Wildfire Management Branch (WMB) standards. Due to the severity of the 2023 fire season this is not feasible as the 2023 fire season is one of Alberta’s largest fire seasons on record. FSTB requires contractors to capture forest fire polygons for the 2023 fire season. The successful completion of this service requires the vendor to provide photo-interpreter(s) with previous experience in delineating wildfire polygons. The objective of this project is to capture the outer extent of the burned areas and the attributes of the polygons within the fire, using digital imagery (30 cm or 40 cm 4-band colour IR). The imagery will be acquired during the summer or fall 2023 depending on fire status. Delivery of the services is dependent on the successful acquisition of imagery. The project scope may need to be reduced based on the availability of imagery. The objective of this project is to capture the outer extent and the attributes of the polygons within the fires, using digital imagery in a softcopy environment. The imagery (30 to 40cm 4-band colour IR) will be acquired in the summer or fall of 2023. This project will acquire digital boundaries and their attributes for the fires listed in Appendix B.1, to the specifications outlined in Appendix B.6. The estimated area is 359,707 hectares. As the fire season progresses additional fires, and respective area, may be added to the scope of this project.