Wildfire Emergency Management –
Remote Sensing Capabilities
Marc Padillaab, Mariona Borràsa, Jordi Vendrella
a Pau Costa Foundation
b Department of Geography, University of Leicester, UK
Conference & Summer School on Forest Fire Management
Istituto Superiore Antincendi, Rome, Italy - September 20-22, 2016
Pau Costa Foundation
• Founded on January 2011 by >60 members of the European wildfire community
• Objectives
– Exchange and disseminate international knowledge on fire ecology, wildfire
management and operational responses to crisis
– Bring together research, practitioners and society
– Generate synergies between leading international institutions
Pau Costa Foundation - Activities
• http://www.paucostafoundation.org/pcf_actions_map.php
Training
• Fire use and management, Crisis management, Fire analysis,
Meteorology, Aerial Resources Coordination, etc.
• >60 training workshops for >1100 fire-fighters in Spain
• 200 fire-fighters from Wales, Northern Ireland, Denmark and Italy
Exchanges and Innovation
• Prescribed Burning with the United States Forest Service
• Fellowship and Practicum for the Master Fuego from the Lleida-University-Extremadura (Spain)
• Lessons Learned from wildfires: e.g. in Mallorca, Valencia, Catalonia
• Study tours to Sweden and Switzerland in collaboration with EFICENT
• Training agreement with Wildland Restoration International (WRI)
• Euromediterranean meeting on wildfires
• Technical Consultancy: e.g. in Portugal, France, Colombia, Balearic Islands, Chile
• Vallfirest
International Projects
EMXSYS
• Wildfire management
software
PHAROS
International Projects
FIREEfficient
eFIREcom
WuiWatch
Reducing Wildfire
risk
Resilience of
citizens to wildfires
in WUI
Protocols and
legistlation to
prevent fires at WUI
Dissemination
• Journal Clubs
• Journal articles
• Webinars
• Art&Fire
• Book publisher
• MeFiTu
• TV
documentaries,
radio interviews
Fire Research at
Dept. Geography, University of Leicester
Burned Area Mapping
• Copernicus Global Land
Service
– Pre-operational BA product
– Global, 300 m
– 10-day composites available 3
days after data sensing
Validation of Burned Area Maps
Fire
Disturbance
project
Forthcoming improved
BA maps at Copernicus
SWIR NIR NBR Sudden change
• Based on region growing of
sudden burn-like spectral
change near active fires
East-Central Africa
min lat,lon=5,30; max lat,lon=10,35
January 2015
Forthcoming improved
BA maps at Copernicus
Northern Africa; January 2015
Validation at CCI’s
Fire Disturbance project
Sample
Supervised classification
1st click – display data
Edit training polygons
[Edit polygons for manual classification]
2nd click – classify
Open source, Python script
Validation data
Wildfire Emergency Management
Fire Analysis
• Input Factors
– Topography
– Vegetation
• Fuel types and breaks
– Meteorology
– Fire behaviour and location
• Outputs
–
–
–
–
–
Fire type
Critical points
Opportunities
Priorities and objectives
Fire-fighting strategy
Source: Bombers, Generalitat de Catalunya
Modified from Lo Forestalillo 158, Fig. 14
Fire information available during the
emergency
Source: Bombers, Generalitat de Catalunya
Modified from Lo Forestalillo 154
Source: Bombers, Generalitat de Catalunya
Modified from Lo Forestalillo 156, Fig. 24
Existing Satellite Derived Products
Burned Area products
•
•
•
•
Maps of what has burnt
500m – 1km pixels
1 map per day
available several days after
data sensing
Existing Satellite Derived Products
Active Fires products
• Hot spots at the time of satellite
overpass
• Location precision of ~1km
• Observations each day
• Available ~3 hours after data
sensing
Northern California fires
August 2015
viirsfire.geog.umd.edu
Raw and free Satellite Images
Moderate Resolution
MODIS
• 500m pixels
• 2 images per day
• available ~3 hours after data
sensing
Portugal
7-15 August 2016, 1 per day
MODIS @GEE
Raw and free Satellite Images
High Resolution
Sentinel-2 and Landsat
• 20-30 m pixels
• Image every 1-8 days (1-5 days
on 2017 )
• Available several days after
data sensing
– Sentinel-2 will be available
100 minutes after data
sensing (sentinel.esa.int)!!
Portugal
15
7 August
August2016
2016
Landsat 7 and 8 @GEE
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)
Remote Sensing
Too costly
Or too limited
• legislation
• conflicts with aerial fire fighting
traffic
www.questuav.cl
www.nasa.gov
New solutions to be expected
Camera mounted on aircrafts
• Images with high resolution
• Video streaming
• Limitations
– Can’t cover simultaneous
incidents
www.axsys.com
last accessed July 2011
Implementation Failure
• Bombers (Catalan Fire &
Rescue Service) purchased
one for 1,4 m€ in 2010
• It is still not in use
(www.emporda.info; May 2015)
• System Failure?
• Bad user interface?
• Not needed?
Solar UAV - High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite
• Zephyr @ Airbus Defence and
Space
• Still no operational
• Uncertainties
– Cost?
– Legislation?
airbusdefenceandspace.com
• Airbus claims that
–
–
–
–
–
Real-time imaging
Flies above air traffic (20km)
Endures like a satellite,
Focuses like an aircraft and
Is cheaper than both of them
Conclusions
• Wildfire real time monitoring is needed at emergency response
• Still no any real time monitoring system implemented at regional
scale
• Technology does exist, but probably not low-cost
• New solutions expected from new Satellite missions and UAV
platforms.
• Need of end user involvement in
– System Requirements
– Tests and system verification
• Need to study implementation failures to make sure forthcoming
successes
Thanks for your attention
www.paucostafoundation.org
Marc Padilla
Mariona Borràs
Jordi Vendrell
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Conference & Summer School on Forest Fire Management
Istituto Superiore Antincendi, Rome, Italy - September 20-22, 2016