IFEMS: a new approach for monitoring wildfire evolution with NOAA-AVHRR imagery

A new approach for monitoring wildfire evolution was developed. It was achi eved by integrating both the burned area mapping system and the fire detect ion system. Multi-spectral multi-temporal images of the National Oceanic an d Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA -AVHRR) were employed. The new system has an excellent performance in monit oring fire growth due to its ability of capturing areas that were burned co mpletely between two consecutive images, as well as those which were burned before the monitoring time. In addition, the system has the ability to dif ferentiate among burned areas, active fire (fire front) and the area beneat h flames. The algorithm of the system is described. The false alarm due to the saturation problem of channel 3 was avoided. The integration of the sys tem with fire simulation programs for fire monitoring is discussed.