SATELLITE-BASED FOREST-FIRE DETECTION FOR FIRE-CONTROL IN BOREAL FORESTS

Forest fires in large sparsely populated areas in the boreal forest zo ne are difficult to detect by ground based means. Satellites can be a viable source of information to augment air-borne reconnaissance. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor aboard the Nat ional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites has bee n used to detect and map fires in the past mainly in the tropics and m ainly for environmental monitoring purposes. This article describes re al-time forest fire detection where the aim is to inform local fire au thorities on the fire. The fire detection is based on the 3.7 mu m cha nnel of the NOAA AVHRR sensor. In the fire detection algorithm, imagin g geometry is taken into account in addition to the data from the near -infrared and thermal infrared channels. In an experiment in summer 19 95, 16 fires were detected in Finland. One was a forest fire, 11 were prescribed burnings and 4 false alarms. Three of the false alarms were due to steel factories. We conclude that satellite-based fire detecti on for fire control is feasible in the boreal forest zone if the conti nuous supply of frequent middle-infrared data can be guaranteed in the future.