Protective afforestation is a key factor in environmental conservation strategies, addressing environmental and food security issues, and fostering sustainable natural resource management. Over 70 years ago, the eight state protective forest belts (SPFB) were designed and planted in the steppe zone of European territory of Russia. Currently, most of these stands are reaching their maximum age, which has prompted the study and monitoring of the condition of SFB’ forest stands. The aim of this study is to map fire areas in SFBs between 1999 and 2021 and analyze their current status in the Saratov, Volgograd, and Rostov regions. Medium-resolution (10-meter) Sentinel-2 satellite images were used to calculate the NDVI vegetation index to determine the actual forest area. Raster data from Landsat-7/8 satellites was vectorized for areas affected by fires in SPFB. Precipitation data for the April—October growing season were obtained for each region to compare the impact of this factor on the state protective forest belts burning capacity. Results obtained demonstrate no correlation between average annual precipitation and the area burned by fires in the Rostov Region (0.02, p-value 0.930), a weak relationship in the Volgograd Region (–0.21, p-value 0.331), and a significant relationship in the Saratov Region (–0.53, p-value 0.009). Based on the NDVI calculation, an assessment of the state protective forest belts integrity was carried out. The lowest integrity of state protective forest belt plots (68.7, 62.8, 66.4%) is observed with a fire frequency of 1 to 3 times in the same area.
A. A. Vypritskiy (Mon,) studied this question.