Wildland Fire Management Support
Wildland Fire Managers have been using geospatial technologies for the past 20 years and within the past five years geospatial technologies have become tools that managers depend on. Prior to actual wildland fire incident, GIS is being used to asses risk, refine pre-attack planning, and manage prevention activities. Remote sensing datasets such as LANDFIRE (http://www.landfire.gov/index.php) will help manager using geospatial models to predict areas at risk to wildland fire.
During a wildland fire incident, geospatial technologies are used by incident command teams to determine where resources should be positioned, plan firefighter escape routs and community evacuation routes, and monitor the fire’s progression. Information regarding how geospatial technologies on incidents can be found at http://gis.nwcg.gov/. Fire perimeters are posted daily at http://www.geomac.gov/ and past perimeters posted to GeoMAC are located at: ftp://ftp.geomac.gov/outgoing/.
After a wildland fire incident is over, geospatial technologies are used to access the severity of the wildfire using remote sensing data (http://fire.r9.fws.gov/ifcc/esr/Remote%20Sensing/RS.htm). GIS maps are created to help natural resource specialist to for seeding, erosion control, and soil stabilization efforts.
After a fire, damage can be quickly and inexpensively assessed by using MODIS or Landsat Thematic Mapper data. With accurate information on the area of the burn scar, amount of biomass destroyed and the amount of smoke and air pollution, forest managers can efficiently proceed with recovery and planning. |
This MODIS Aqua image from September 26, 2006 shows several active fires in northern California. The large one towards the center of the image, with the red outlines, is the Bar Complex Fire. Just north of it is the Uncles Complex Fire. The smoke from it appears to be hiding any “hotspots” in that fire from the sensor’s view, which is why there aren't red outlines shown for that fire (Image and Text were obtained from http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2006-10-01) |
The intent of our site is to provide you with geospatial information and acquaint you with our services. Thanks for visiting ---- we look forward to spatially serving you!
