The Disaster „Fires“, its Detection and Means to Improve Information

Abstract

In every country of the world fires are feared and considered as very bad disasters. It was noted by astronauts as well as by optical remote sensing satellites that every day hundreds and often thousands of vegetation fires can be observed from the space. Besides vegetation fires there are coal fires in many places of the world. These fires are caused by self-ignition (oxidation process). For instance in China, which has the largest coal deposits, approximately 20 to 30 million tons of coal are lost annually as a result of fires. The fires mentioned above are quite often in remote areas and therefore, it is of highest importance to detect the fires and extinguish them before they reach dramatic dimensions. Therefore, DLR decided to develop a dedicated sensor package for space-borne fire detection, which allows to measure the temperature and estimate the extent of the burning area. The sensor package has been chosen to allow the rejection of false alarms caused by sun glints. The rejection is based on an evaluation process using MIR/VIS (Middle Infra Red/Visible) and MIR/TIR (Middle Infra Red/Thermal Infra Red) radiance ratio thresholds. In the paper, results from airborne campaigns and the space mission will be presented.