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Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy: A Global View

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Remfiresat, Real Time Emergency Management for Forest Fire Services via Satellite1

Jesús Gonzalo,2 Susana Martínez,3 Gonzalo Martín3

AbstractThe 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.

1 An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the second international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: a global view, 19–22 April, 2004, Córdoba, Spain. 2 Project Manager, INSA Ingeniería y Servicios Aeroespaciales. Department of Studies and Missions, Pº Pintor Rosales, 34, Madrid, CP 28008.3 System Engineer, INSA Ingeniería y Servicios Aeroespaciales. Department of Studies and Missions, Pº Pintor Rosales, 34, Madrid, CP 28008.

USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-xxx. xxxx.

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Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy: A Global ViewGENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PSW-GTR-208 Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy: A Global View

Session 5B—Remfiresat, Real Time Emergency Management—Gonzalo, Martínez, Martín

System Concept The objective of Remfiresat is to demonstrate the use of satellite technologies to manage an emergency situation as the uncontrolled fire is. The system has been designed following a user requirement driven approach and the system suitability has been proved and validated through a comprehensive set of demonstrations to check the benefits of the application under real crisis scenarios.

Remfiresat combines the main satellite technologies to provide a new orientation in the management of natural disasters: Earth Observation, Navigation systems and satellite communications. These space based systems work in a synergetic manner with the ground user facilities to reach a more efficient utilization of available technology.

Remfiresat General Description Architecture of the Remfiresat System Fire Fighting services in the European countries are organized in different centralized or de-centralized structures to optimize the management of resources. Remfiresat system is embedded at decision maker premises to receive all information from external and internal sources.

.

Battle Field

Salamanca

Valladolid

Madrid

Valladolid

RCCNational

Command Centre

RCC National

Command Centre Local Office

RCC Regional

Command Centre

RCC Provincial

Command Centre

Voice Messages

Off line data

Voice Messages

Off line data Geodata

Voice Messages

Off line data Geodata

EDGExternal Data

Gateway

Geodata

Voice Messages Geodata

Other positions

VoicePosition

HHT Forest

Agent Head

RVTWater Pump RVT

Bulldozer

HHTRapid Attak

Observation Airplane

Canadair

HHTSupression Manager

Voice (sat)Position

Messages

PositionMessages

PositionMessages

PositionMessages

Voice Video

Position

VoiceImage Position Message

Voice Message Position

RPMA Advanced

Command Centre

Figure 1—Remfiresat system architecture embedded at user hierarchical organization. HHT is a hand-held terminal and RVT is a vehicle terminal.



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The Castilla-Leon Forest Fire service in Spain has been selected to run the experiment as reference user. The region encloses several provinces, regional managers report to national authority and provincial ones to regional. Within provinces, if a fire has enough entity an advanced command centre is deployed in the battle field for accurate management activities.

Remfiresat system is present at all scales in the fire fighting decision chain, providing communication lines for transferring information among managers, but also from sources to managers. This communication is established following the hierarchical user structure. The transferred information includes apart from traditional voice and fax capabilities, digital data, imagery and positioning of mobile resources.

The different user bodies are equipped with data gathering terminals and appropriate communication devices to form the system network. Besides, mobile resources are equipped with positioning capability and forest agents in the battle field are fitted out with communication assets.

The External Data Gateway (EDG), included in the Remfiresat network, is in charge of satellite data processing.

Remfiresat Command Centres The Command Centres are the brains of the Remfiresat system. These are a group of nodes interconnected through a telecommunication network where operator can access system services, manage resources, watch Earth observation products and communicate each other.

The generic Remfiresat Command Centre (RCC) is located at user decision level. The RCC is a standard desktop computer with specific hardware and software to connect to other system terminals. This centre is able to receive process and transfer the requested information, either external or generated by the system. The main data packages, manage by the RCC are: voice and message communications, positioning of mobiles, geo and meteorological data and voice, fax and internet with other authorities.

The Advanced Command Centre (RPMA) is normally deployed in a forest area relatively close to the fire front; this centre is a replica of the provincial centre and becomes the neurological centre at the battle field. It requires specific equipment to provide high bandwidth link between the provincial module and the advanced one to exchange large pieces of information, for instance satellite data. The link is provided by a portable VSAT station which is deployed at the RPMA unit and a second antenna permanently installed at the provincial centre.

The RPMA has been installed either in a tent peg or a UMMT (Mobile unit for Meteorological Data). Computers and subsystems are installed in user existing facilities so that size and power consumption are adapted to these premises.


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Figure 2—Remfiresat Advanced Command Centre installed in a tent peg and a mobile vehicle.

Remfiresat Hand-held and Vehicle Terminals Remfiresat terminals are individual units to be operated directly during the fire-fighting activity. There are different models of terminals, which are utilised depending on the user requirements in a real situation:

Remfiresat Hand-held terminals (HHT): They are units providing voice and automatic positioning among HHT and either the provincial or the advanced command centre. There are two kind of hand-held terminals regarding different messaging capabilities:

o HHT1: is a satellite mobile phone which provide voice capabilities through Globalstar system

o HHT2: is an ORBCOMM message communicator. It includes automatic GPS positioning reported to its corresponding command centre and a user interface with an input keyboard and LCD display.

Remfiresat Vehicle Terminals (RVT): they are units installed in fire fighter vehicles, water pump trucks, bulldozers, airplanes and RPMA vehicle to provide GPS positioning and messaging capabilities to provincial and advance command centres. Orbcomm is the used system for terrestrial units and Inmarsat is the one for aerial units.

Figure 3—HHT1: Globalstar mobile phone. HHT2: Communicator ORBCOMM + ALCOM terminal. RVT: Psyon Orbcomm terminal



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There is other alternative, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with an expansion kit including GPS and GPRS capabilities. The PDA has implemented a reduced version of the Remfiresat system that allows introduction and sharing information, viewing layers, etc.

Earth Observation Processing Centre Remfiresat system intends to integrate different space technologies in a compact-friendly system to generate value-added products that improve efficiency to the protocols currently in use. The EDG is in charge of the acquisition, processing, storing and dispatching of the Earth observation data and related products, making use of as much as possible remote sensing satellites and suppliers.

The most important dataset managed by the EDG is the remote sensing data, both near real time and historical. The source of this information provides from diverse satellites which different passing hours. The appropriate agreements are signed with data providers to ensure the timely arrival of the data from the different sources.

The EDG produces interesting products for fire fighting. It takes the satellite raw data and the ancillary data to further generate the following products:

Fire line: It consists of a vector representation of the fire front. The product is generated when a fire is produced during a pass of the MODIS-TERRA satellite and within their coverage area. BIRD demonstration satellite has been also used during demonstrations. The fire line is ready one hour and ten minutes after the beginning of the raw data transmission. Attending to external data, the calendar of high resolution satellites passes is studied and the passes coinciding with a fire development of certain relevance are located, so the image is acquired to estimate fire line and burned area map.

Hot spot map: It is composed of a GIS layer containing suspicious points hotter than initially expected. NOAA, FENGYUN and MODIS are used to cover the whole Castilla-Leon and areas of Portugal.

Risk index: It is a referenced map in UTM-H30 with a grid of 10x10 km containing an estimate of the fire risk, indicating the probability of occurrence of fire spreading. The fire risk index is daily elaborated at passing of the NOAA, FENGYUN and MODIS satellites. As time difference between FENGYUN and TERRA satellites is very short the most appropriate image is selected in each case.

Burned area map: It consists of a geo-referenced image in raster format with the burned area highlighted. The product is generated by using NOAA and FENGYUN satellites providing 1x1 km resolution, but also TERRA with 250x250 m resolution. The detected burn surface has to be large enough to be seen in both scales. NOAA and FENGYUN satellites can cartography minimum burned area around 70 hectares, while TERRA around 5 hectares approximately. Commercial satellites can be also used, as for instance Landsat, providing quite better resolution.

Weather forecast: The weather forecast products (ground temperature, humidity, accumulated rainfall, wind velocity and wind direction) are elaborated by using the MM5 Weather Forecast Model.


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Fire propagation forecast: It consists of the propagation of the fire line by using the FARSITE fire propagator. The mentioned simulation tool incorporates existing models of surface fire, crown fire, point-surface fire acceleration, spotting, and fuel moisture. The models are integrated using a vector propagation technique for fire perimeter expansion that control for both space and time resolution of fire growth over the landscape. The model produces vector fire perimeters (polygons) at specified time intervals. The vertices of these polygons contain information on the fire's spread rate and intensity, which are interpolated to produce raster maps of fire behaviour.

Figure 4—Earth Observation elaborated products in the Remfiresat tool. From left to right: Risk index map, hot spot map, fire front line and burned area map



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Table 1—Earth Observation elaborated products and features regarding forest fire fighting phase.

Forest Fire Fighting Phase

Remfiresat Product Features

Prevention phase Risk index 10 km resolution Detection phase Hot spot map 1000-250 m resolution (real time)

Pixel size accuracy Suppression phase Fire front representation

Fire propagation forecast (optional)

1000-250 m resolution (real time) 30 m resolution (off-line)

Pixel size accuracy Damage assessment phase

Burned area assessment 1000-250 m resolution (real time) 30 m resolution (off-line)

All phases Weather forecast Pixel size accuracy

It is worthy of mention the German BIRD satellite (Bi-spectral Infra Red Detection micro satellite) which is a technological demonstrator. The main objective of this satellite is to show forest-fire services capacities and possibilities of a future fire-activities dedicated satellite constellation. Its thermal sensors have better resolution than currently existing general purpose satellite sensors, such as AVHRR or MODIS, making it able to locate small fires. BIRD detected fire lines as small as 5-m during a set of prescribed fires performed in the region of Galicia on May 2003. BIRD satellite images were also used during demonstration activities within Remfiresat.

Dynamic and distributed geographical information system The DDGIS is the application running at the Command Centres allowing users to manage local and external resources temporally allocated to them, alarms, fires, geographic data and other events of interest for the fire fighting activities in the different phases of the crisis.

The dynamic and distributed GIS (DDGIS) tool uses a data model (distributed database) that automatically actualized with the information received or requested.

The DDGIS tool provides a friendly and easy-to-learn user interface, allowing the operator to see the evolution of the different means. Each element (fires. alarms, bulldozers, canadairs, brigades, etc) is represented on the maps, in their current position, with a representative symbol. Layers with topographic information can also be loaded. Users decide in any moment the visualized information.


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Figure 5—DDGIS main view. Different elements are present in the main window. The chief components are a general map and a group of maps that represents zoomed areas of the general one. These maps are complemented with a system log (under both maps) and a properties window, placed under the group of maps. These four elements are where operators can analyse results of software functions accessed by the main menu and the toolbar buttons, both placed at the top of the window.

The software has two operational modes: A Real-time mode, involving fire fighting, resource assignment, communications between nodes and reception of external data, and an off-line mode, where history processing shall be made in order to generate reports and statistics.

System demonstration and operational use The system has been widely demonstrated in order to verify its performances and to fulfil user expectations. Several proofs have been carried out: concept proof, full commissioning, two real fire demonstrations and finally full season operation during 2003 fire campaign.

The concept proof validated the proposed technical solutions provided by a limited and representative set of Remfiresat modules. The full commissioning was carried out after the full system integration. Two prescribed fires were executed along with this last demonstration in order to obtain satellite images to produce the first forest fire fighting products and to test the system in a real situation.

After demonstrated the successful system operation, the system was running during the 2003 summer campaign. It was intended that operators used the whole system functionalities and capabilities during a long period of time, for them to see



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the advantages of space technologies and in forest fire fighting, and to generate a feedback used by Remfiresat system engineers to prepare the migration to a full operational system.

Figure 6—The hot spot map obtained from MODIS-TERRA satellite revealed the existence of a forest fire 25 km far from the Spanish border. The Forest Fire service was warmed by the provided map and then prepared attack resources in case an intervention was needed.

ConclusionsThe appropriate synergy among communication, navigation and remote sensing satellite services leads to a system that fulfils the requirements of the authorities and operators involved in the forest fire-fighting activities in a cost effective manner.

The system is composed of a network of Command Centres, one of them offering the capability of installation close to the fire area, from which all the suppression activities are commanded and monitored. The Command Centres share the information in a hierarchical manner, minimising the data flows and ensuring data integrity.

Additionally, the system provides data terminals and communicators to be carried by the field personnel and the fire suppression vehicles. These terminals open new easy and robust communication channels, providing extra features like messaging capabilities or positioning to allow managers to better organise the work.

Finally, remote sensing data from existing satellites are served by the system automatically in such a way that the fire suppression manager has accurate information on the extent and position of the fire, together with other data supplied by the fire propagation software. Other products, like fire risk index and fire damage, are also available before and after the fire.

Remfiresat is a high value tool for the fire fighters at all levels in the decision making chain.


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ReferencesGonzalo, Jesús; Martín, Gonzalo; López, Álvaro; Romo, Alfredo. 2003. Remfiresat, Real

Time Emergency Management for Forest Fire Services via Satellite. Final Report.RMST-INSA-28000-TN-02. (In printer)

Vélez, Ricardo. 2000. La defensa contra incendios forestales, fundamentos y experiencias.McGraw Hill Interamericana.

MODIS cloud mask team. 1997. ATBD-MOD06: Discriminating clear-sky from cloud with MODIS algorithm theoretical basis document (mod 35).

MODIS science team. 1997. ATBD-MOD14: Algorithm Technical Background Document.

Martínez, Susana; Casanova, José Luis. 2002. Trade-offs on Earth Observation Data Sources. RMST-INSA-13100-TN-01

Martínez, Susana; Casanova, José Luis. 2002. System/Subsystem Design: Earth Observation Data. RMST-INSA-15100-TN-01.

Alonso, Ainhoa. 2003 .RCC Management Application User Manual. RMST-INSA-23300-TN-01.


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