The 2016 Cold Springs Fire destroyed 8 homes and burned hundreds of acres¶

The fire burned outside of Nederland in Boulder County, CO¶

@millie-spencer October 2023¶

The 2016 Cold Springs Fire

Image source: The Denver Post https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/001_fire.jpg?w=810

This project uses Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to assess vegetation recovery post-wildfire¶

'/home/jovyan/earth-analytics/data/coldsprings-fire'
OBJECTID agency comments active mapmethod datecurrent uniquefireidentifier fireyear incidentname pooownerunit ... state inciwebid localincidentidentifier irwinid incomplex complexfirecode latest shape__Area shape__Length geometry
0 1003 C&L N Unknown 1468540800000 2016-COBLX-000457 2016 Cold Springs COBLX ... CO 4848 000457 221c1b99-d2fe-4abe-9ef1-31225b812dcd N Y 3.640322e+06 14922.590938 MULTIPOLYGON (((-105.48912 39.98666, -105.4888...

1 rows × 26 columns

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Vegetation Analysis¶

This analysis utilizes Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data in Red and Near-Infrared (NIR) spectra to assess vegetation recovery post-wildfire. This data is collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite, and can be accessed from NASA's APPEEARS API: https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/.

<earthpy.appeears.AppeearsDownloader at 0x7f8a256533a0>
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Dimensions:      (x: 20, y: 6, date: 40)
Coordinates:
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  * x            (x) float64 -105.5 -105.5 -105.5 ... -105.5 -105.5 -105.5
  * y            (y) float64 39.99 39.98 39.98 39.98 39.98 39.98
    spatial_ref  int64 0
  * date         (date) datetime64[ns] 2015-05-17 2015-06-02 ... 2020-08-20
Data variables:
    NDVI         (date, y, x) float32 0.5777 0.5777 0.6125 ... 0.4966 0.6005
xarray.Dataset
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    • y: 6
    • date: 40
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      39.99 39.98 39.98 39.98 39.98 39.98
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        [0.4831, 0.4624, 0.6401, ..., 0.6717, 0.6685, 0.6685],
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...
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No description has been provided for this image
geometry
0 MULTIPOLYGON (((-105.49589 39.97558, -105.4958... 
<Axes: xlabel='year'>
No description has been provided for this image

Peak green NDVI dropped by approximately 0.13 inside the boundary immediately post-fire.¶

Vegetation Index continued declining after the 2016 fire, hitting a low-point in 2017. Although NDVI increased slightly in 2018 and again in 2019, vegetation declined once again in 2020 perhaps due to land development. Upon further analysis of Google Earth imagery, it is unclear why the NDVI increased and then dropped again, as the landscape looks visually quite similar over the course of 2016-2020, with no apparent vegetation regrowth post-fire.