Detection of coal mine fire in Jharia Coal Field using Landsat-7 ETM+ data

Coal mine fire is a major problem in Jharia Coal Field (JCF). The surface and subsurface mine fire areas can be detected with different type of techniques like borehole temperature measurement, geophysical methods, thermo-compositional analysis, thermo-graphic measurement, airborne remote sensing and space-borne remote sensing techniques. Of these the remote sensing technique is used to detect the coal fires covering a large area using multi-spectral and/or multi-temporal data. In this paper Landsat-7 Enhance Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) band 6 thermal data is used for detection of surface and subsurface coal fires. Thermal survey was carried out in the field using thermal imaging camera. The temperatures detected through ETM+ satellite image are validated against those observed field temperature of the study area. This technique is considered as a cost effective for the detection of surface and subsurface temperature profile in comparison to other techniques. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.