Burn Severity

Classified raster of fire impact derived from the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) and its relative form (RdNBR). The canonical MTBS class breaks on the scaled (×10³) dNBR axis are: | code | class | dNBR range (scaled ×10³) | |------|-------|--------------------------| | -1 | Increased greenness / regrowth | < -100 | | 1 | Unburned to low | -100 to +99 | | 2 | Low severity | +100 to +269 | | 3 | Moderate severity | +270 to +439 | | 4 | High severity | +440 to +659 | | 5 | Increased greenness (post-fire) | ≥ +660 | dNBR (delta Normalized Burn Ratio) is `NBR_pre - NBR_post`, where `NBR = (NIR − SWIR2) / (NIR + SWIR2)`. The RdNBR (relative) variant normalizes by pre-fire NBR to reduce the effect of pre-fire vegetation cover. MTBS uses USGS analyst review of Landsat scene pairs and ships pre-computed annual aggregates for the US; Sentinel Hub and GEE recipes compute dNBR automatically per pre/post-fire scene pair. Used by post-fire recovery, ecology, insurance, and emissions ops.