Fire Remote Sensing by the Small Satellite on Bi-spectral Infrared Detection (BIRD)

Abstract

The DLR satellite on Bi-spectral InfraRed Detection (BIRD) was piggy back launched with the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in a 570 km circular sun-synchronous orbit on 22 October 2001. BIRD is a demonstrator mission for new small satellite remote sensing technologies. One of the BIRD’s primary mission objectives is the detection and quantitative analysis of high-temperature events on Earth surface, such as wild fires, volcanic events and coal seam fires. Multispectral infrared data of BIRD are used as input for a new hot spot recognition algorithm which has been successfully tested at the German Aerospace Center during the BIRD commissioning phase. A unique feature of the BIRD mid infrared and thermal channels is the real-time control of their dynamic range. That allows the observation of hot events without sensor saturation, preserving at the same time a good radiometric resolution of 0.1-0.2 K at ambient temperatures of about 300 K. Due to its higher spatial resolution, BIRD can detect fires with the area an order of magnitude smaller than operational polar orbiting systems such as the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) or the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS). The paper presents results on BIRD recognition of forest fires in Australia, Brazil, and coal seam fires in China. Detailed fire data will be presented from the Sydney bush fires from January 2002, such as temperature, area, radiative energy release, front length and front strength.