David Steitz, Headquarters
Phone: 202/358-1730
David.Steitz@hq.nasa.gov
Lynn Chandler, Goddard Space Flight Center
Phone: 301/286-2806
Lynn.Chandler.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
Lee Tune, University of Maryland
Phone: 301/405-4679
ltune@accmail.umd.edu
RELEASE NO. 01-83
August 20, 2001
NASA Satellite, University Of Maryland and U.S. Forest Service
Provide Rapid Response to Wildfires
U.S. firefighters and land managers are using the most modern
NASA-satellite data to combat wildfires. NASA’s Terra satellite
provides a view of fires across the entire United States, which helps
fire experts manage fires more effectively, both during and after
wildfire events. The effort is a collaboration between NASA, NOAA, the
University of Maryland and the USDA Forest Service.
The Terra satellite beams daily images of western U.S. wildfires to
NASA within a few hours of the time that it passes over the region.
These images, showing the locations of active fires, are transmitted to
the Forest Service. When the Forest Service’s own direct broadcast
receiving stations are completed in October, this will reduce the
transmission time to minutes. Images from Terra’s
Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument will
become a regular part of the Forest Service’s fire monitoring
toolkit.
“NASA remains deeply committed to working cooperatively with its
sister agencies to monitor and combat wildfires across the nation. Our
investment in the Terra Earth Observing System is starting to pay
tremendous dividends to the American taxpayer,” said Ghassem Asrar,
NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Office of Earth Science.
In order to use MODIS data to tackle forest fires, a complex
communications network is maintained between NASA, the University of
Maryland and the Forest Service. The three institutions are integrated
under the Rapid Response Project. Rob Sohlberg at the University of
Maryland’s Department of Geography in College Park, Md., leads the
Rapid Response Project with Jacques Descloitres at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This program was created in
response to the 2000 fire season, with its extensive wildfires in Idaho
and Montana.
By October 2001, the Forest Service will have the capability to
produce their own MODIS fire images within minutes of a Terra
overpass. “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 (NIFC). “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.”
The University and NASA developed all of the needed software, which
will be installed at the Forest Service’s data receiving station.
The Forest Service developed corresponding software that creates the
Active Fire Maps from the Terra data using standard mapping techniques.
The Forest Service’s Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC)
in Salt Lake City, Utah, provides development, support and application
of remote sensing technologies and techniques. Currently, the Forest
Service is building a MODIS processing center in Salt Lake City to
generate near-real-time images of western wildfires. However, the Forest
Service will still receive imagery of the eastern U.S. from the
University and NASA.
Keith Lannom, the Operations Program Leader at RSAC, stated, “The
University of Maryland sends MODIS 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. These maps show current active fire areas in near real time
on the Internet.”
The maps show daily active fires, and areas that were burned during
previous days. These maps will be used for strategic asset allocation
when fighting wildfires. Advanced products to assist the Burned-Area
Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) teams are also being developed from
Terra data. The BAER team consists of soil scientists, hydrologists,
wildlife specialists and other scientists. They use burn severity
maps-derived from satellite and ground measurements-to help them take
measures that will prevent further erosion, soil loss and adverse
impacts to water quality. It is anticipated that Terra data will provide
a quick look, which can then be refined on the ground. The maps will
also help scientists identify critical wildlife habitat affected by the
fire and facilitate reforesting an area.
Wei Min Hao, the Project Leader of the Fire Chemistry Project at the
Forest Service’s Fire Science Laboratory in Montana, is developing
a MODIS aerosol product to track smoke dispersed by wildfires, and to
determine the impact that it has on regional air quality. Hao
said, “During fires where there are large amounts of smoke,
reconnaissance planes that normally map fires can’t fly into an
area, but MODIS can provide those pictures from space.” Dr. Yoram
Kaufman from NASA is working with Dr. Hao on these products.
The Terra spacecraft is part of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise,
a long-term research effort being conducted to determine how
human-induced and natural changes affect our global environment.
The MODIS Land Rapid Response System Web site can be found at: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
The MODIS Rapid Response Fire Maps can be accessed through the
National Interagency Fire Center Web site (click on RSAC Fire Maps link)
at: http://www.nifc.gov/firemaps.html
For more information about NASA’s fire research, read: NASA Demonstrates New Technology for Monitoring Fires from Space and
NASA Satellite Data Used Operationally to Help Combat Fires in the West |
|
August 11, 2001 (1.8 MB JPEG)
August 13, 2001 (1.8 MB JPEG)
August 15, 2001 (1.1 MB JPEG)
August 18, 2001 (1.7 MB JPEG)
Washington · August 20, 2001 (1.9 MB JPEG)
California · August 20, 2001 (1.5 MB JPEG)
These true-color images over the Pacific Northwest were acquired by
MODIS on the dates of Aug. 11, 13, 15, and 18, 2001, respectively. The red
boxes reveal the locations and extent of active
wildfires across the region. The images span the region from Northern
California and Western Nevado northward across Oregon, Washington, and
parts of Western Idaho. According to NIFC reports, there are 15 large
wildfires currently burning in the Pacific Northwest. This region is
the current hotspot, receiving most of the nation’s current deployment
of firefighting and support personnel to battle the blazes.
Images courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
California & Nevada False-color Time Series:
August 13, 2001 (8.7 MB TIFF)
August 14, 2001 (6.0 MB TIFF)
August 16, 2001 (7.4 MB TIFF)
August 17, 2001 (8.5 MB TIFF)
August 18, 2001 (8.7 MB TIFF)
The Upper Willow fire broke out on August 17, 2001, near the border between Oregon and Nevada. Over the course of 24 hours the fire burned 40,000
acres, as shown by the two images above. Using a combination of visible and near infrared light the images show smoke (blue), burn scar (black), vegetation
(green), and barren land (yellow/gray). The images linked above show more of the fires burning in Northern California and Nevada from August 13 to August 18,
2001. These include the Quartz, Trough, and Blue Complex fires.
Images courtesy Rob Sohlberg, UMD Global Land Cover Facility, and Alex Kekesi, NASA
GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio.
Animations:
Blue Complex (5.3 MB Quicktime)
California Smoke (8.7 MB Quicktime)
California Fires (8.6 MB Quicktime)
Siberia Fires (6.3 MB Quicktime)
Animations courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC,
Rob Sohlberg, UMD Global Land Cover Facility, and Alex Kekesi, NASA
GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio. |
