Presentation at the Earth Observation Symposium of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, 25-06-2018. The slides give an overview of the firemaps.net platform, and current R&D activities carried out on fire emissions and fire behaviour.

1. fire information from space at your fingertips
firemaps.net provides fire monitoring services to the fire management and climate
mitigation communities.
Gernot Rücker

3. Climate change, air pollution & fires
3
Biomass burning contributes to
climate change through GHG
emissions (~about 6% of fossil
fuel emissions)
Air pollution causes an
estimated 3.3 Mio. premature
deaths per year, biomass
burning being the most
important source in the
southern hemisphere

4. firemaps.net target user communities
4
Climate change,
environmental
Protection & health
Time series on fire emissions
Burned area
Input to Monitoring
Reporting, Verification
Fire management &
Fire suppression
fast & accurate information:
risk& hazard mapping, fire
perimeters, spread models,
fire impact
(Re-)insurance Rapid damage assessment
Analysis of fire threat
Global analysis
Climate change impact

5. 5
Intuitive web interface

6. 6
Information on each fire event

7. 7
Long time series on burned area, emissions, biomass burned, etc..

8. 8
Fire behaviour modellling
Online fire behaviour modelling

9. 9
Fire behaviour modellling
Online fire behaviour modellingFire risk analysis
and early warning

10. 10
Fire behaviour modellling
Online fire behaviour modelling
Decision support and
management reports

11. 11
And in the field: Mobile app

12. Methods: Estimating smoke emissions from fires
12
Emissions = biomass burned * Emission factor

13. ZEBRIS GIS and Consulting
“New” method: estimate biomass burned from heat
Radiation Radiation
Biomass burned =
Fire Radiative Energy * Sf * Cf
Sf = 0.368 MJ/kg
Cf = 1.56

14. Estimate biomass burned from time series of
observations for each fire
14
20.09.16 morning
15.09.16 morning

15. Analysis of spread rates: Example from Brazil
15
Landsat 05/09/2015 13:12:57 (UTC)TET 05/09/2015 15:59:05 (UTC)TET 06/09/2015 03:47:38 (UTC)

16. Fireline intensity: Combining fuel consumption and ROS
16
Start date (burned area) 26/08/2015
End date (burned area) 11/09/2015
First fire detection (UTC) 30/08/2015 13:15
Last fire detection (UTC) 05/09/2015 17:10
Area 18700.0 ha
Estimated Fire Radiative Energy 98.6 TJ
Burned biomass/ m² 0.285 kg / m²
Standard error of estimate:
burned biomass
0.082 kg/m²
MODIS FRP – derived fuel consumption
estimate & higher resolution derived ROS
provide first estimate of fire intensity
ROS [m/s]
ROS
uncertainty
[m/s]
Fuel
consumptio
n [kg/m²]
Fuel
consumption
uncertainty
[kg/m²)
Low heat of
combustion
[kJ/kg]
Low Heat of
combustion error
[kJ/kg]
Fire Intensity
[kW/m]
FI un-
certainty
[%]
0.033 0.01 0.285 0.082 16890 1000 160 38
0.023 0.01 0.285 0.082 16890 1000 112 46
0.033 0.01 0.285 0.082 16890 1000 157 39
0.027 0.01 0.285 0.082 16890 1000 129 42

17. Automating Rate of Spread (ROS) estimates
17
Sentinel 2: 2016-12-16 10:48
VIIRS: 2016-12-16 13:24
2857 m
9335 s

18. Estimating fireline intensity from fuel consumption and ROS
18

19. Landsat 8: 15.02.2016 03:43:29
Output: fire perimeter
Fuel Type: New Deciduous Forest
N
NPP fire detections:
15.02.2016 18:35:00
Simulation run stop
time =
Overpass of NPP =
15.02.2017 18:35:00
Fire spread model output

20. Background: SRTM
Output: fire intensity
Fuel Type: New Deciduous
N
550 kW/m
75 kW/m
Fire intensity model output

21. firemaps.net: Architectural overview
Web Client Mobile Client
Heterogeneous Data Sources
provided by
Satellite data providers
Weather data
Firemaps DB
Raster data
Mission-specific
Connector
(Sentinel, Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS,..)
Preprocessing module:
Reformat
Reproject
Subset, Cloud mask…
GeoServer OGC WMS/WFS Server
GIS Client
Modelling modules (burned area, emissions, fire behaviour,…
Firemaps web services
Security and web mapping framework

22. Danke!
www.firemaps.net info@firemaps.net
AwardsAcknowledgements/Partners
Photo: A.A. Hoffmann
Office Ivoirien des
Parcs et Réserves