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Annual Earth-observation embeddings encode wildfire disturbance and support simplified burned area mapping

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 22, 2026 · UTC

Medium-resolution (10-30 m) burned area mapping is vital for monitoring wildfires and their impacts, but remains difficult to scale. Existing methods require either curated fire-specific imagery or dense time-series analysis. Here, we tested whether annual Earth-observation embeddings retain wildfire disturbance signals sufficiently to map burned areas without either requirement. Using Tessera and AlphaEarth embeddings, we tested individual burn-scar delineation, mapping of all same-year fires within an area, regional wall-to-wall mapping, cross-continental transfer, and intra-annual fire timi

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