Wildland fire managers, scientists and the public benefit from timely and easy to access information about current fire activity to provide information about potential risks and support suppression activities. NASA provides multiple sources of time sensitive satellite imagery and derived data products within the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). FIRMS is a web-based application with a dynamic mapping interface to visualize current and historical satellite imagery, active fire detections/hot spots and related science data products to identify the location, extent, and intensity of wildland fire activity and its effects. The application also provides multiple tools for users to access and ingest data as downloadable GIS datasets and map services for use in applications. This three-part training will familiarize participants with the various modules available in FIRMS, explore the range of data and information available as well as the characteristics of satellite-based active fire detection, and provide hands-on experience that participants can apply to query, access and visualize the data in GIS and other applications.
Learning Objectives: By the end of this training attendees will be able to:
- Evaluate different satellite-based active fire detection data sources using FIRMS to build a wildfire narrative; understand the strengths and limitations of each source for different types and sizes of fires
- Apply FIRMS data and tools to evaluate rapidly growing wildfires using tools available in FIRMS
- Apply strategies using FIRMS to identify factors that can impact satellite-based wildfire detection, resulting in a ‘missed’ wildfire, and plan for when data may become available
- Use FIRMS to monitor a particular area of interest by accessing active fire data from the archive of available data, using web services to create an email alert for the area, and ingesting the resulting fire alerts into a GIS platform to enable evaluation
Audience: Stakeholders involved in the identification, monitoring, and management of wildfires and their impacts including Federal, state agency, and local government representatives; National governments; NGOs; Academia
Course Format: Three, 1.5-hour parts including Q&A.
How to Apply:
Course Dates: April 16, 23, 30, 2025
Time: 11:00 -12:30 or 15:00-16:30 EDT (UTC-4); There will be identical sessions at two different times of the day. Participants need only to register and attend one daily session.
