SPACE.com -- Satellite Surveillance Helps U.S. and Canadian Firefighters

The August 19, 2001 map of the Washington and Oregon showing fires (in black) in the region. The map was created using the Terra satellite's Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer which photgraph's the Earth every two days.

Data from the Tyros satellite showing fires (bright red spots) in the states of Washington and Oregon on August 19, 2001.

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	Satellite Surveillance Helps U.S. and Canadian Firefighters *By SPACE.com* Staff** posted: 10:20 am ET 21 August 2001

To use the Terra data to tackle forest fires, the three institutions are integrated under the Rapid Response Project, which includes a complex communications network. Rob Sohlberg at the University of Maryland's Department of Geography leads the project with Jacques Descloitres at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This program was created in response to the 2000 fire season, with its extensive wildfires in Idaho and Montana.

"The Active Fire Maps offer the potential for understanding the 'big picture' when working on resource allocations decisions," said Alice Forbes, Deputy Director for Forest Service Fire and Aviation Operations at the National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID. "The maps can also help the public understand where the fires are located, and give them a look at the burned areas after fire season."

By October, the Forest Service will have the capability to produce its own fire images within minutes of a Terra overpass. The Forest Service is currently building a processing center, called the Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC), in Salt Lake City, UT, to generate real-time images of western wildfires. However, the Forest Service will still receive imagery of the eastern United States from the University of Maryland and NASA.

The University of Maryland and NASA have developed all of the needed software, which will be installed at the USFS direct broadcast station. The Forest Service has developed the corresponding software that creates the maps from the Terra data using standard Forest Service mapping techniques.

"The University of Maryland sends images and active fire location information daily to RSAC staff who are overlaying state boundaries and topographical features on the images to best determine where fires are occurring," said Keith Lannom, the Operations Program Leader at RSAC. These maps show current active fire areas in real-time on the Internet."

Despite getting a little burned during its trial by fire, Canada's REMSAT proved its self on the frontlines. The REMSAT system provided telephone and fax support functions for the Incident Management Team. Reliable communications are critical to managing any emergency incident, especially to the administrative, planning, logistical, and line operations functions.

High speed internet access provided by the REMSAT system proved invaluable to the Incident Commander, as well as the Fire Behavior Specialist because they were able to access several online weather sites containing such tools as near real-time satellite imagery, 500 millibar charts and long range forecasting models. E-mail with digital photo attachments was used to keep senior managers regularly updated on daily activities.

"Information management in forest fire and other emergency incident types will not be the same in British Columbia after this summer," Newton said. "This REMSAT system definitely filled an operational void that has existed for far too long."

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