This study analyzed land cover and land use (LCLU) changes due to fires in Central America from 2001-2015, with a focus on El Salvador. MODIS satellite data showed Guatemala had the most annual fires, while El Salvador had fewer fires than other countries. In El Salvador's Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve, only 4 total fires occurred from 2004-2008. Analysis of Landsat imagery from this region showed minimal closed forest change but a drop in agriculture, possibly due to burning clearing land for open vegetation. The study aims to help policymakers understand fire impacts on local economies, livelihoods, habitats and ecosystems.

1. Fires in Central America: El Salvador
Context
Fire continues to affect Central America’s land cover and land use (LCLU) today. Whether through fire
management with relation to agriculture practices or deforestation in order to obtain a different LCLU, fires
change ecosystems within the various land classes of the region. Therefore, it remains imperative that the
monitoring of LCLU changes due to fire effects that occur with the use of remote sensing and GIS which can
capture the intensity and spatial extent of fire phenomenon. This study uses fire data from 2001 to 2015 in
order to measure the changes of LCLU due to fire occurrences within Central America with a focus on El
Salvador.
LCLU can have either a positive or negative affect upon an ecosystem which is measured by either a gain or
loss within in a particular ecosystem in a given land class. These measurements can help determine threats to
critical habitats in relation to biodiversity loss, water inundation, and anthropogenic resources. While
uncontrolled fires continue to shape LCLU and ecosystems, fire management is a tool that is still used in the
region in order to conduct agricultural reset, to encourage desired vegetation, and to discourage undesired
vegetation.
It is important to understand the impact fire has upon ecosystems as they provide important ecological
services; such as biodiversity, species habitat, water resources, and inter-ecosystem nutrient transfer. With
respect to local communities, ecosystems provide flood and storm surge protection, resource use and
extraction in the form of building material, subsistence farming, commercial fishing, and ecotourism. These
anthropogenic services can be used for local livelihoods in order to increase local economies.
Data
The data utilized to develop this study included Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
fire data MCD14MDT from 2001-2015 and LCLU data from 2001-2012 covering Central America. This
data was reduced to study just the country of El Salvador. Central American country administrative
boundary shapefiles acquired from DIVA-GIS.
Landsat 7 ETM+ SLC-off images from 2004, 2008, and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS Land Surface Reflectance
2015 were incorporated for a southern region along the El Salvador coast and Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve
Mangrove Forest region .
Preliminary Results
El Salvador’s southern Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve Mangrove Forest region yielded few fires during the timeframe of
acquired Landsat imagery for November 2004, October 2008, and November 2015. With respect to November 2015
no fire data was available and in November of 2004 and October 2008 only a total four fires occurred during the
prescribed time period. Since there were few fires occurring at such small scale no regression analysis was conducted.
An inference could be made that the drop of agricultural landscape percentage between November 2004 and October
2008 may have been a result of agricultural burning and an increase of open vegetation. The minimal change within
the closed forest landscape percentage was not surprising seeing that the Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve Mangrove Forest
region is a protected area. However, the low percentages of closed forest landscape within the region appear to be
indicative of a prior time when potential aggressive deforestation could have occurred.
MODIS fire data displayed the extensive amount of burning in Central America between 2001-2015. The levels of
burning within each country are varied with Guatemala leading the number of fires per year. It was expected that
countries of smaller spatial area would experience a lesser amount of fires per year. The year 2003 was significant for
the Central American region in that it was a year in which many fires were recorded. Fire data reflected that El
Salvador experienced less fires than all other Central American countries during this study. The highest number of
fires were recorded during the years of 2004 and 2015 while 2008 and 2011 were the lowest.
Future directions
● A lack of statistical data does not always constitute causation of LCLU change and fire effects. For example, a
large number of previous fires between 2004 and 2008 could account for the higher percentage of open vegetation
as another land class or classes may have been burnt off thus yielding to open vegetation. After post imagery
analysis, the few fires that occurred within the Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve Mangrove Forest region seem to be a
continuance of controlled agricultural burning.
● To gain a greater understanding of burning patterns in Central America, the data could be evaluated by months.
The development would provide an increase in data manipulation that would foster a better comprehension of
burning effects during particular seasons.
● There is a hope that this study would be developed so that policy makers will be able to interpret the data analysis
in such manner which would serve as an initial assessment in the attempts to address the scope of fire effects
within a particular region of Central America, such as the effect upon the local region’s economy, livelihood,
critical habitat, or ecosystem.
● All products used for this study are free to the public at no cost.
Acknowledgements
This study was a collaborative work with University of Colorado Colorado Springs peers, Jesse Miller and Jordan
Hirro. Dr. Cerian Gibbes supplied the MODIS MCD14MDT active fire data.This study was supplemented by
Fulbright NEXUS funding.
References
Mingxu Liu, Yu Song, Huan Yao, Yaning Kang, Mengmeng Li, Xin Huang & Min Hu. (2015). Estimating
emissions from agricultural fires in the North China Plain based on MODIS fire radiative power. Atmospheric
Environment, 112(2015), 326-334. Retrieved from http://www.elsevier.com/locate/atmoseny/
Warner, Timothy A., and David J. Campagna. Remote Sensing with IDRISI: A Beginner’s Guide. Hong Kong:
Geocarto International Centre, 2013. Print.
Department of Geography & Environmental Studies
Kayla Inks & Malcolm Nichols (authors listed alphabetically)
Recipient of the 2015 Student/Faculty Research
Creative Works & Community Service Awards
Study Site
The components of this study can be divided into three tiers beginning at the regional level of Central
America then into the national level of El Salvador, and lastly including the local level of the Bay of
Jiquilisco Reserve Mangrove Forest area. The Central American region in this study considers the following
countries; Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panamá, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. This region was
chosen with the knowledge that more studies are conducted in other areas around the world in comparison to
Central America when regarding LCLU within the region. It also proves valuable as there is a high degree of
landscape and terrain variation across the region.
Total number of fires in the Bay of Jiquilisco Mangrove
Forest Region, 2001-2015
Methods
Shapefiles containing point data was acquired where each point value represented a single fire event in a Central
American country. Data was divided and clipped using country (administration) boundaries to separate the dataset
to individual country data. The fire data included events with confidence levels of various ranges which were
filtered to display only the events with 80 or above values. This narrowed the data pool significantly and created a
more specific range of fire events. The acquisition date for each event required reformatting, so the addition of a
field for acquisition year was included. This process allowed a selection of fires per year in each country to be
possible.
Landscape percentages for the Bay of Jiquilisco Reserve Mangrove Forest region were derived by using IDRISI-
SELVA software’s Unsupervised Land Classification which uses an algorithm to differentiate between spectral
classes and informational classes. The Unsupervised Classification method was used because there is a lack of first-
hand knowledge of the area such as known terrain features and/or any other identifiable features whereas
information classes could be assigned such as; water, closed forest, open vegetation, agriculture, bare soil, and
built. After informational classes were set, groups of pixels were placed into spectral classes using an Isoclust, then
using the Symbol Workshop, informational groups were fitted into the best matching spectral group and each
spectral group was reassigned to an informational class. To obtain actual landscape percentages for each separate
time frame, the finalized Unsupervised Classification Isoclust’s histogram for each time frame was used and the
cumulative frequency no data pixels were subtracted from the total number of no data pixels. That difference was
divided into each informational classes' cumulative frequency of pixels which resulted in the percentage of
landscape.