The main aim of Remfiresat is to demonstrate the synergetic use of available space technologies for the management of forest fires. A consortium led by INSA, in collaboration with ‘Junta de Castilla y León’, and financed by the European Space Agency developed and evaluated the system during the summer campaign of 2003 in Castilla y León. The demonstration process was executed in three phases: the first focused on the design and using a few representative resources, the second developing the whole system and the third under real fire conditions (June to September 2003). Satellite Earth Observation, Navigation and Communication services were combined in a single management tool that allowed operators to make use of all available datasets from any location, from central offices to in-field command centres. Current assets were fully integrated with the satellite-based system.
The Dynamic-Distributed-GIS tool manages national, regional, provincial and local information, following the established decision-making chain. The test site was the province of Salamanca (Provincial Centre + Mobile unit), monitored from Valladolid (Regional Centre) and reporting to the National DGCN (Valladolid and Madrid).
Private and Public communication networks were complemented by satellite communication lines to provide redundancy or access to remote areas. Mobile resources were referenced by a GPS system and communicated via ORBCOMM (or existing INMARSAT terminals).
An Earth Observation processing centre, located at LATUV (Valladolid) acquired and prepared the satellite images from general purpose satellites (NOAA, FENYUNG, TERRA, METEOSAT) and dedicated ones (BIRD). Five different products were generated on at least a daily basis (depending on acquisition frequency): fire risk index, hot spot map, fire-line maps, burned area cartography and weather forecasts.
In some specific situations a deep study of the evolution and consequences of a big fire was required. So, high-resolution images, as LANDSAT images, were acquired to obtain the burned area map, and a fire area simulator (FARSITE) was used to analyse the fore behaviour, starting pint and possible evolutions.
German satellite BIRD also supported the image provision, thanks to its dedicated thermal sensors, specialized in the identification of hot spots. Results showed that even as small as 5-m fire-line outbreaks can be detected.
Images and more information can be obtained directly contacting the authors.
