Mt. Apo and Mt. Piapayungan: 2 years after the fires

In 2016, two mountains in Mindanao were affected by separate fires–Mt. Piapayungan and Mt. Apo. I wanted to see how the areas have recovered after two years, especially since I helped a little bit with the Mt. Apo response team, so I downloaded some satellite images from the Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8.

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From the satellite image above, it looks like the approximately 1,620 hectares of burned area in Mt. Piapayungan has recovered . It probably helped that most of the affected area appears to be predominantly grassland, and not the thickly forested area.

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In Mt. Apo, about 50 hectares were damaged by the fire, although that could be a little bit higher given that the image is obscured by clouds. As with Mt. Piapayungan, most of the burned vegetation appears to be recovering. Plus, I heard that the hiking trails are open again so that’s a good sign.