Remote Sensing and Modeling of Wildfires
Abstract
The application of satellite remote sensing to the detection and study of wildfires has grown rapidly in recent years as new tools have become available and are put into use. Spaceborne imagery can provide a unique perspective to viewing the fire, giving space/time coverage not available with any other observational system. One aspect of fires that can both be detected with satellite imagery and modeled numerically is the smoke plume produced by the fire. Surprisingly, most models designed to study smoke plumes were created to study controlled burns and not wildfires. We use one such model to compare model simulations with a suite of different types of satellite imagery to study a major wildfire. The 2003 Aspen Fire in the mountains north of Tucson, Arizona is used as a case study for the analysis of satellite imagery of a wildfire smoke plume in conjunction with model simulations of this plume. We clearly demonstrate that this plume model can be used to adequately simulate the fire plume as depicted in the satellite imagery when the plume achieves a sufficient altitude. For weak fires and low wind conditions the plumes often follow the local surface topography.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 25, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA449932
Entities
People
- John M Marshall
- Michele A. Kuester
- William J. Emery
Organizations
- Ball Aerospace & Technologies