A chance discovery has led a California professor to propose developing an app that would allow firefighters to track wildfires using satellite imagery.
While it might seem easy to spot large-scale wildfires when they break out, that task can prove daunting for crews, according to CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Tim Chavez. Sometimes, it can be hard for firefighters to see the whole picture, especially in harder-to-get-to rural areas with limited cellphone and computer networks.
“Some of the fire, we can see it and we know where it’s at. But most of the fire, we have no idea where it’s at until we get an infrared over the fire later that night," he told KSBY-TV.
Jeff Chambers, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, says technology exists that would enable firefighters to access satellite imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in order to search for hot spots. Using that technology, an app could be created that would allow crews to follow the movement of a wildfire and predict its direction in order to stop it from spreading.
“The information is out there and it’s in the open and it’s not a puzzle," Chavez told KSBY. "it’s just developing an interface that’s usable on the fire ground that’s the only thing."
In fact, it was the massive Camp Fire that led to Chambers to discover the images. He and his students had downloaded the satellite pictures in order to follow the wildfire.
Who would undertake developing such an app remains the question. Chambers has suggested that a single satellite could be tasked for wildfire detection, and the technology also could be used to track the intensity of lightning strikes, according to KSBY.
