Fire, people and pixels: Linking social science and remote sensing to understand underlying causes and impacts of fires in Indonesia

This study in the wake of 1990s fire catastrophes identifies and analyzes
underlying causes of vegetation fires in eight locations across Borneo and
Sumatra.Multidisciplinary and multiscale analysis integrates geospatial technologies
with varied social research approaches and participatory mapping.
It helps fill a void of site-specific evidence on diverse underlying causes of
the Indonesian fires, despite emerging consensus on macrolevel causes and
impacts, and policy debates on preventing future fire disasters. Our most important
findings include confirmation of multiple direct and underlying fire
causes at each of the eight locations, no single dominant fire cause at any
site, and wide differences in fire causes among sites. Conclusions emphasize
the importance of location specific studies within a regional analytical
context. Our “hybrid” research methods demonstrate the explanatory power
of integrating geospatial and social analysis techniques, and the benefits of
analyzing fire causes and impacts at multiple scales in varied locations across
diverse regions.