The potential of the recent SPOT VEGETATION (VGT) sensor for characterization of boreal forest fires was studied. The capability of the sensor for hotspot detection and burned area mapping was assessed by analysing a series of VGT, NOAA/AVHRR and Landsat TM images over a 1541 km2 fire in May 1998 in Alberta, Canada. VGT's 1.65 micro m short-wave infrared channel was capable of detecting thermal emissions from intense fires although it was considerably less sensitive to hotspots than the 3.7 micro m channel from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. The short-wave infrared channel also enabled burned areas to be more easily discriminated compared with the visible and near-infrared channels. The short-wave and near-infrared channels were combined to produce a new index that provided better separation of burned forests with less sensitivity to smoke aerosol than the commonly used Normalized Difference vegetation Index.