Fire Scar Mapper Plugin for QGIS

The Fire Scar Mapper is a QGIS plugin designed to assist in the detection and analysis of wildfire-affected areas. It provides two core functionalities:

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🔥 Functionality Overview

1. Pre- and Post-Fire Image Generator

This tool allows you to:

• Select a starting and ending date, location of interest and estimated affected area in hectares (depending on each wildfire)
• Automatically retrieve satellite imagery before and after the fire from Google Earth Engine (GEE)
• Clip the images to a circular area centered on the ignition point
  • This clip is made with a buffer depending on the affected area, this allow to define an estimated length relating the area with the FireScar bigger axis.
• Add the resulting images to your QGIS project for further analysis

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2. Fire Scar Detection with Deep Learning

This module enables you to:

• Select pre- and post-fire images from your QGIS layers
• Run a trained U-Net model to detect burned areas
  • AS: Model trained with images cropped to the affected size of a FireScar
  • 128: Model trained with images of 128 x 128 pixels centered on the FireScar
  • (Try with both models to select the best output)
• Generate a georeferenced raster representing the fire scar
• Visualize the outputs directly within QGIS in a structured and organized way

The fire scar raster is stored in a /results folder within the plugin directory.

The repository of the U-Net models is on this link

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⚙️ Plugin Usage Instructions

To use the plugin in QGIS, follow the steps below:

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Step 1: Clone the Repository

Clone this repository anywhere and then create a symbolic link to the QGIS plugins folder

• Open a terminal with admin privileges
• Go to the folder where QGIS store their plugins. On most systems, the folder is located at:

cd C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\QGIS\QGIS3\profiles\default\python\plugins

• Create the symbolic link:

mklink /D FireScar-Mapper-Plugin <path where the repository was cloned>
example: mklink /D FireScar-Mapper-Plugin C:\Users\USER\plugins\FireScar-Mapper-Plugin

Note: The name of the folder must be the same as the one that it's cloned (FireScar-Mapper-Plugin)

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Step 2: Download the Google Earth Engine Plugin

To use the image generation feature:

1. Install the Google Earth Engine plugin via the QGIS Plugin Manager.
2. Follow the instructions that appear.
3. You must link your GEE account and provide an authorized GEE project ID (which you can create in GEE Code Editor).

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Step 3: Enable the Plugin in QGIS

1. Restart QGIS (if it was opened).
2. Go to Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins.
3. Look for "Fire Scar Mapper" and enable it.
4. A dialog will appear if any dependencies are missing — click Install and follow the instructions.
5. After downloading the missing dependencies restart QGIS Desktop.

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Step 4: Use the Plugin

After installation, you can:

• Tab 1: Generate Pre- and Post-Fire Images

  • Select a starting and ending date, ignition point and affected area in hectares.
  • Retrieve and add satellite images directly to your project

• Tab 2: Generate Fire Scars

  • Select pre- and post-fire images from the dropdown (all layers in the project are listed)
  • Select the model approach: AS or 128
  • Run the model to generate a burned area mask
  • Output raster is added to the top of the QGIS Layers Panel with the colormap "Reds" applied

🗂️ All outputs are saved in the /results/ folder within the plugin directory.

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🛰️ Using Custom Satellite Images

If you want to use your own images instead of generating them via GEE, they must meet the following conditions:

Technical requirements:

• CRS: EPSG:4326
• Pixel resolution: 0.0002695° (~30m N-S)
• 8 bands in this exact order: R, G, B, NIR, SWIR1, SWIR2, NDVI, NBR
• Data type: Float32
• Source: Landsat (L5, L7, L8 or L9), Collection 2, Surface Reflectance level, with scale factors applied
• Cloud-free or cloud-masked

Content requirements:

• Pre-fire image: most recent available image up to 365 days before the fire start date
• Post-fire image: most recent available image up to 180 days after the fire control date
• Both images must cover the exact same geographic extent and resolution

⚠️ Images that do not meet these conditions may produce inaccurate or empty fire scar predictions, as the models were trained with images generated under these exact specifications.

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📦 Dependencies

The plugin automatically installs required Python packages on first use, including:

• earthengine-api
• torch
• torchvision

A confirmation window will appear before installation. A restart of QGIS may be required afterward.

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