DM-10 Wildfires

Description

The following is the list of essential elements of information needed from potential geospatial wildfire applications by disaster managers. (Please note that italics denotes EEIs as determined for the Stennis Space Center study of disaster management requirements):

• Determine biomass moisture
  
• Develop urban land interface characterization
  
• Determine fuel load and its moisture content
  
• Determine vegetation/landscape/roofs
  
• Develop high-resolution digital terrain data and LULC data are vital to predicting fire spread and to assessing fire damage
  
• Determine the extent of drought
  
• Determine water sources
  
• Determine assets at risk
  
• Determine where utilities are located
  
• Determine road locations
  
• Develop a community fire brigade and report and or extinguish small fires
  
• Develop communications Systems
  
• Develop warning Systems
  
• Develop information System
  
• Determine damage estimation
  
• Identify Seasons:
  
• Identify Danger Zones:
  
• Danger zones include all wooded, brush, and grassy areas--especially those in Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, California, Massachusetts, and the national forests of the western United States
  
• Develop an evacuation plan
  
• Monitor large fires in progress, including fire fronts, smoldering areas, burn scars neighborhood.
  
• Fire starts and fire node identification is important to prediction of fire spread. These models require inputs on local terrain (elevation, land cover), current surface winds, air temperature, humidity, and fuel loads
  
• Develop command & control, resource tracking, decision-support systems operating on short time horizons for disaster response
  
• Determine damage assessment, including visible, IR, and SAR data at 10-cm resolution
  
• Develop logistics planning
  
• Determine burn scar and infrastructure damage
  
• Develop structural Measures:
  
• Fire Protection Standard 299
  
• Develop disaster resistant communities
  
• Determine risk management
  
• Develop education, technology transfer
  

Rationale

• Probable Partners
  o R&D Partners
  o Federal agencies (e.g., USFS, BLM, U.S. EPA, Army Corps, NOAA, USDA, U.S. Fire Administration)
  o Universities
  o State Geologic Surveys and land management agancies
  

• Potential Benefit and Payoff
  o To Be Determined
  

• Legislative mandates / regulatory mandates / directives to which the proposed application responds or complements
  o The Temporary Emerging Wildfire Suppression Act, PL 100-428
  o The 25% Fund Act, PL 60-136
  o The Organic Act of 1944, PL 78-425
  o PL 61-435
  

• Other Supporting Data
  The following are web-based and other resources that provide information regarding disaster management’s role in wildfire research, preparation and mitigation:
  

Imagery
Automated Fire Mapping System
Fire Weather Information Center
Fire Detection Around The World
Predicting Wildfires
Storm Prediction Center:Fires
Covering Florida Fires

Other US Government
USGS: Western Wildfires
USGS: Biological Resources Div. fires fact sheet
National Interagency Fire Center
NIFC National Fire News
Wildland Fire Assessment
Calif Fires
Bureau of Land M'gmt
Florida Division of Forestry
National Park Service
InfoZone
Forest Service: Fire
Forest Service:Other Fire Links
Protection from Wildfires
Fire's Role in Ecosystems
Montana Fires

Other US Wildfire Sites
UCSB Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center
Firewise.org
Firehouse.com
Wildfire Images
Florida Today: Special Report
History of Wildfires
American Red Cross: WildFires
Wildlandfire:"They Said"

International Wildfires
Fireglobe
Fireglobe:Current
UNEP:Fires
World Fire Web
S.E. Asia Fires and Haze
Machu Picchu International Fire Protection Project

Title ETO cloud studies for FIRE II.
Author Sassen, Kenneth.
Publication date 1992
Location Federal Documents - Microforms (Non-Circulating)
Call number NAS 1.26:190472

Title Inter-comparison of wildfire and high-resolution interferometer sounder (HIS) data from STORM-FEST an investigation of wildfire spectral channel discrepancies
Author Jedlovec, G. J.
Publication date 1994
Location Federal Documents - Microforms (Non-Circulating)
Call number NAS 1.15:108439

Title New concepts of fire detection
Author National Fire Data Center.
Publication date 1978
Location Federal Documents (Non-Circulating)
Call number FEM 1.102:F 51/2

Title Remote sensing techniques aid in pre-attack planning for fire management
Author Salazar, Lucy Anne.
Publication date 1982
Location Federal Documents - Microforms (Non-Circulating)
Call number A 13.78:PSW-162

Hoyle, Pat, "Virtual Command/Paradigm 800", Washington State Fire Chiefs Association, World Wide Web Site at http://www.ifsn.com/virtual.htm.

International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), World Wide Web Site, http://www.ichiefs.org/, POC: Ann Kelly @ (703) 273-9815, x336.

National Fire Academy (NFA), US Federal Emergency Management Agency, WWW site [http://www.usfa.fema.gov/nfa/tr.htm].

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), WWW site, [http://www.nfpa.org/], POC is Arlene Barnhart, e-mail: library@nfpa.org.

US Fire Administration, World Wide Web Site, http://www.usfa.fema.gov; Emmitsburg, Maryland.

AIRDAS Airborne Infrared Disaster Assessment System

http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/ERAST/ARGOS/airdas.html
The Airborne Infrared Disaster Assessment System (AIRDAS) is a four channel scanning instrument designed and built at NASA- Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. The scanner is designed for the specific task of filling a critical gap in airborne instrumentation of wildland fires and other natural and man-induced disasters.

Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC): Fire Implementation

http://nasda.ceos.org/materials/eos_workshop/14.pdf
Fires are a hazard - a topic of the IGOS-P Disaster Management Support Group (DMSG) which is focusing on data requirements and in particular near real-time data provision for fire fighting.

In Natural Hazard Management: Specifications And Requirements
J. San Miguel- Ayanz, M. Verstraete, B. Pinty, J. Meyer- Roux and G. Schmuck
http://natural-hazards.aris.sai.jrc.it/documents/fires/1997-presentations/enamors-ppt.pdf

Relationship to Existing Science Programs and Initiatives

• Project: Commercial Strategies for Utilizing High Resolution Satellite Imagery in Fire Management, 1997-1999
  
• Project: Developing Methods for Mapping Fuel Characteristics for Predicting Fire Behavior Across the United States
  
• Project: Development of a Tactical System for Fire Management and Prediction
  
• Project: Fire Prediction and Real Time Simulation System
  
• Project: Modeling and Prediction of Wildfire Hazard in Southern California, Integration of Models with Imaging Spectroscopy
  
• Project: Southern California Center for Managing Fire Hazards at the Urban-Wildlands Interface
  

Partnership options that might be pursued

• To Be Determined
  

Additional studies or surveys needed to establish the status of this application

• To Be Determined
  

Additional research needed to establish viability of application

• To Be Determined