Multispectral Satellite Imagery Products for Fire Weather Applications

Abstract

Two multispectral satellite imagery products are presented that were developed for use within the fire management community. These products, which take the form of false color red-green-blue composites, were designed to aid fire detection and characterization, and for assessment of the environment surrounding a fire. The first, named the Fire Temperature RGB, uses spectral channels near 1.6 μm, 2.2 μm and 3.9 μm for fire detection and rapid assessment of the range of fire intensity through intuitive coloration. The second, named the Day Fire RGB, uses spectral channels near 0.64 μm, 0.86 μm and 3.9 μm for rapid scene assessment. The 0.64 μm channel provides information on smoke, the 0.86 μm channel provides information on vegetation health and burn scars, and the 3.9 μm channel provides active fire detections. Examples of these red-green-blue composite images developed from observations collected by three operational satellite imagers (VIIRS on the polar-orbiting platform and the Advanced Baseline Imager and Advanced Himawari Imager on the geostationary platform) demonstrate that both red-green-blue composites are useful for fire detection and contain valuable information that is not present within operational fire detection algorithms. In particular, it is shown that Fire Temperature RGB and Day Fire RGB images from VIIRS have similar utility for fire detection as the operational VIIRS Active Fire products, with the added benefit that the imagery provides context for more than just the fires themselves.