Battling Wildfires from Space: UMD, NASA Add to Firefighters’ Toolkit

U.S. firefighters battling wildfires this year will get a clearer view of these threats with new UMD-led, NASA-funded satellite-based tools to better detect fires nationwide and predict their behavior.

The new fire detection tool now in operation at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS) uses data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite to detect smaller fires in more detail than previous space-based products. The high-resolution data have been used with a cutting-edge computer model to predict how a fire will change direction based on weather and land conditions.

The new active fire detection product using data from Suomi NPP’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) increases the resolution of fire observations to 1,230 feet (375 meters). Previous NASA satellite data products available since the early 2000s observed fires at 3,280 foot (1 kilometer) resolution. The jump in detail is helping transform how satellite remote sensing data are used in support of wildfire management.

Compared to its predecessors, the enhanced VIIRS fire product enables detection every 12 hours or less of much smaller fires and provides more detail and consistent tracking of fire lines during long duration wildfires—capabilities critical for early warning systems and support of routine mapping of fire progression. Active fire locations are available to users within minutes from the satellite overpass through data processing facilities at the USFS Remote Sensing Applications Center, which uses technologies developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Direct Readout Laboratory in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The new VIIRS 375m fire detection product project team was led by Research Associate Professor Wilfrid Schroeder of UMD’s Department of Geographical Sciences with scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado. The product was developed with support from NASA’s Earth Science Applied Sciences Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System Proving Ground Program, and the U.S. Forest Service.

NCAR developed a new cutting-edge weather-fire model that has demonstrated potential to enhance firefighter and public safety by increasing awareness of rapidly changing fire behavior. The model uses data on weather conditions and the land surrounding an active fire to predict 12-18 hours in advance whether a blaze will shift direction. The VIIRS fire detection product has been applied to these models, successfully verifying the wildfire simulations.

The state of Colorado recently decided to incorporate the weather-fire model in its firefighting efforts beginning with the 2016 fire season.

“We hope that by infusing these higher resolution detection data and fire behavior modeling outputs into tactical fire situations, we can lessen the pressure on those working in fire management,” said Schroeder.

The demand for timely, high-quality fire information has increased in recent years. Wildfires in the United States burn an average of 7 million acres of land each year. For the last 10 years, the USFS and Department of Interior have spent a combined average of about $1.5 billion annually on wildfire suppression. Large catastrophic wildfires have become commonplace, especially in association with extended drought and extreme weather.

Active fire maps of the United States are available online at: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us

Published on Thu, Jul 16, 2015 - 1:01PM