Smoke Management - Tools

Remotely Sensed Data

Smoke and Fire Remotely Sensed Data

Geostationary and polar orbiting satellites provide remotely sensed data of smoke, fire and air quality. The information can be useful to provide a regional and national view of fire and smoke impacts.

SMARTFIRE - The Satellite Mapping Automated Reanalysis Tool for Fire Incident Reconciliation (SMARTFIRE) is an algorithm and database system that combines multiple sources of fire information and reconciles them into a unified GIS database. It reconciles fire data from space-borne sensors (provided by the NOAA HMS system) and ground-based reports, thus drawing on the strengths of both data types while avoiding double counting.

NOAA HMS - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System (HMS) is an interactive processing system where trained satellite analysts manually integrate data from various automated fire detection algorithms aboard geostationary and polar orbiting satellites. The result is a quality controlled display of the locations of fires and significant smoke plumes detected by meteorological satellites.

FS RSAC - The Forest Service Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) provides near real-time fire detection, characterization and monitoring from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Terra and Aqua polar orbiting satellites, in order to support interagency strategic fire management and planning.

FIRMS - The Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) integrates remote sensing and GIS technologies to deliver global MODIS hotspot/fire locations to natural resource managers and other stakeholders around the world.

NASA Earth Observatory - The Earth Observatory's mission is to share with the public the images, stories, and discoveries about climate and the environment that emerge from NASA research, including its satellite missions, in-the-field research, and climate models. The site includes satellite pictures of smoke and fire events.

Remotely Sensed Air Quality Information

OMI - The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard the Aura polar orbiting satellite can distinguish between aerosol types, such as smoke, dust, and sulfates, and measures cloud pressure and coverage, which provide data to derive tropospheric ozone.

Aerosol Optical Depth - The GOES EAST Aerosol/Smoke Product (GASP) is a retrieval of the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) made from the current GOES EAST visible imagery. The optical depth of aerosol, as measured by satellites, has been shown to be a good proxy for pollution monitoring, especially when long-range transport is involved. This product is available at a 30-minute interval and 4 km x 4 km spatial resolution during the sunlit portion of the day.