Blue Mountains, New South Wales

The Black Summer fires seen through the burn scar they left.

7,491.5 hectares changed — vegetation cleared · Before: 1 Jun 2019 – 30 Sep 2019 · After: 15 Jan 2020 – 15 Apr 2020 · -33.600, 150.300

BEFORE 2019-09

AFTER 2020-04

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7,491.5 haarea changed

13areas flagged

10,020 haarea examined

2satellites used

What changed, by type

7,391.8 haVegetation cleared

99.7 haNew vegetation

Land changes in both directions at once. SCOPE reports every type it measured, not only the one that makes the better headline.

What SCOPE found

Vegetation cleared — 7,385.3 ha
1.2 km north-east · between 27 Sep 2019 and 30 Jan 2020 · 94% sure

New vegetation — 72.5 ha
5.4 km south-west · between 4 Feb 2020 and 19 Feb 2020 · 82% sure

New vegetation — 14.3 ha
5.0 km south-west · between 4 Feb 2020 and 19 Feb 2020 · 76% sure

New vegetation — 8.0 ha
5.5 km south-west · between 4 Feb 2020 and 19 Feb 2020 · 94% sure

New vegetation — 2.8 ha
5.3 km south-west · between 30 Jan 2020 and 19 Feb 2020 · 82% sure

How sure is this?

The strongest area (#1) has 94% confidence. It appears in 6 of 6 later clear images, so it is not a one-day artefact. Radar confirmed some of these areas; the others rest on optical and seasonal evidence. Compared with the same season in earlier years, this is clearly unusual. Confidence measures how strong the evidence for real surface change is; it does not identify the cause or who did it.

How it was measured

SCOPE used Sentinel-2 optical imagery at 10 m, cloud-masked and combined over each period, Sentinel-1 radar as an independent check , and the same season in earlier years so normal seasonal change is not reported as real change. The analysis took 25 seconds.

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