Fuel type mapping with X-band SAR in military training areas for wildfire risk assessment

Intense firing activities at Spanish Army Training Centers create a significant wildfire risk, requiring the implementation of a specific Plan Against Forest Fires and an Operational Action Protocol, both of which rely on accurate fuel type (FT) maps. We evaluate the usefulness of the backscattering coefficient provided by PAZ, the X-band SAR Spanish Ministry of Defense’s first Earth observation satellite, for FT mapping to support wildfire management in the “San Gregorio” Training Center (Zaragoza, Spain). The methodology involved three phases: (i) processing satellite images from the first PAZ Announcement of Opportunity (AO-001); (ii) delineating field plots for correlation with satellite imagery; and (iii) classifying FTs using multinomial logistic regression. Results indicate that PAZ images are effective for discriminating among the main FTs (grassland, shrubland, and woodland), achieving an overall accuracy of 82.1%. However, they are not suitable for the detailed mapping of the Prometheus fuel categories, with an overall accuracy of 42.9%, primarily due to the limited penetration capabilities of the X-band.