Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

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Fire Information for Resource Management System
(FIRMS)
Chris Justice1, Diane Davies1, John Latham2
1Department of Geography, University of
Maryland 2United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization
NASA Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting Team
Meeting 2010 Presenter Shriram Ilavajhala,
University of Maryland
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• Overview of Presentation
• Re-cap What is FIRMS?
• Accomplishments to date
• Transitioning FIRMS to an operational system at
  UN FAO
• Next steps

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FIRMS Fire Information for Resource Management
System
FIRMS aims to provide easy access to MODIS active
fire detections, with an emphasis on providing
data to protected areas managers.
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FIRMS provides the following tools for accessing
fire information in easy to use formats

• Interactive Web GIS
• Email alerts
• Subsets of MODIS images
• Active fire data downloads (KML, Shape,
  Text files and plug-ins for Google Earth and
  NASA World-Wind)
• Fire Archive Download Tool

FIRMS Fire Information for Resource Management
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FIRMS website http//maps.geog.umd.edu/
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FIRMS Web Fire Mapper
Open source version of FIRMS Web Fire Mapper
uses Google Web Toolkit, MapServer,
PostgreSQL/PostGIS, and other free/open source
software tools.
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Summaries of data stored in temporal and spatial
aggregates displayed if the number of fires
selected by a user exceeds a certain threshold
(approx 150,000 fires).
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FIRMS Email Alerts

• Customized alerts for subscribers area of
  interest (country, protected area, bounding box
  coordinates)
• Choice of daily, weekly, or near-real time
  alerts
• Available in English and Spanish
• 1500 daily alerts and 500-600 near-real time
  alerts sent out per day.

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FIRMS Fire Archive Download Tool

• FIRMS Download Tool lets users download MODIS
  hotspot archive data in shapefile or
  comma-separated text (CSV) formats for their
  area-of-interest, on an interactive map, or by a
  country/protected area boundary.
• Once FIRMS processes their requests, users will
  be notified by email (example below).

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FIRMS Usage Statistics
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August 6, 2006 May 12, 2010
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FIRMS User Survey showed most people use FIRMS
for conservation and fire fighting. Metrics
indicate Fire Email Alerts are sent to users in
over 100 countries.
Respondents
Data use
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FIRMS Usage Example Australian Bushfires of 2009
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FIRMS Usage Example SMS Text Alerts in South
Africa

• FIRMS customized the email alerts system for
  South Africas National Disaster Management
  Center and ESKOM a South African power company
  to provide Text Message (SMS) Alerts in South
  Africa
• The SMS message alerts are used by protected
  area managers and personnel from ESKOM.
• Example of a cell phone alert received in South
  Africa, indicating distance and direction to the
  fire detected by the MSG satellite.

Alert sent by CSIR - Meraka
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Current subscribers to the Email Alerts program
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• Fire Information for Resource Management (FIRMS)
• Through FIRMS, NASA MODIS satellite imagery is
  being used to provide
• Earlier warnings of large fires that warrant
  management response and more accurate fire
  locations,
• More timely allocation of resources to manage
  fires due to early alerts
• More comprehensive overviews of the total fire
  situation (the big picture) for fire managers
  through the top-down view of satellite imagery
• A better connection between fire management and
  conservation programs that now use FIRMS data to
  detect illegal clearings of land in protected
  areas
• A smoother playing field among government
  agencies, the private sector, and NGOs because
  all have access to publicly-available FIRMS
  information over the Web.    
• FIRMS has expanded the number and range of users
  that are able to access MODIS-derived fire
  information. Data that was previously available
  only to those with some technical expertise is
  now routinely accessible.

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FIRMS is being transitioned to the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) in
Rome, as an operational system under the name
Global Fire Information Management System
(GFIMS)
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Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS)
at FAO

• The GFIMS site at UN FAO.
• Available in three languages (English, French,
  Spanish)

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• Next Steps

• Backstop transition of FIRMS to an operational
  domain at UN FAO
• Enhance the FIRMS for protected areas- summary
  statistics (fire and burned area)
• Integrate FIRMS data in to FAO applications and
  projects
• Improvements to the system Integrating FIRMS
  email, download, WMS services with the Web Fire
  Mapper
• Look for funding/sponsorship to expand the cell
  phone SMS text messaging service to a larger
  audience

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• For more information

Davies, D.K., Ilavajhala, S., Wong, M.M. and
Justice, C.O., 2009, Fire Information for
Resource Management System Archiving and
Distributing MODIS Active Fire Data. Geoscience
and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on, 47, pp.
72-79. Davies, D.K., Vosloo, H.F., Vannan, S.S.
and Frost, P.E., 2008 Near real-time fire alert
system in South Africa from desktop to mobile
service http//doi.acm.org/10.1145/1394445.139447
9 In Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on
Designing interactive systems pp. 315-322 (Cape
Town, South Africa ACM).
http//maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/
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Acknowledgements
NASA Cooperative Agreement No. NNS06AA04A
Principal Co-Investigators Diane Davies,
Department of Geography, University of Maryland,
Chris Justice, Department of Geography,
University of Maryland, John Latham, United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Collea
gues Minnie Wong and Giuseppe Molinario from the
Department of Geography, University of Maryland

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Thank you.
http//maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/