Spatial representation of historical fire scars is important to the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) for operational fire management, risk management planning, and hazard reduction activities. For example, analysis of burn patterns allows fire and land managers to identify areas of high risk. Other government and stakeholder agencies also rely on this information for a variety of similar and related purposes. Despite this, there is currently no comprehensive fire history database for the state of NSW. Existing fire scar data is scattered across a number of government agencies and is of variable integrity. The development of an extensive, up-to-date and accessible wildfire history dataset across NSW would significantly improve the aforementioned capabilities at the RFS and its partner agencies.

To address this, the NSW RFS undertook a project to investigate the feasibility of automatically capturing fire scars from satellite imagery. In particular, the suitability of object oriented software packages (Definiens and ENVI Fx) was assessed. This paper reviews the methodologies developed, highlighting associated strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it details the challenges associated with implementing a full scale capture of historical and future fire scar capture across NSW, or nationwide.