Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

1. 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

2. Overview of Presentation • Re-cap: What is FIRMS? • Accomplishments to date • Transitioning FIRMS to an operational system at UN FAO • Next steps

3. 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.

4. FIRMS Fire Information for Resource Management 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

5. FIRMS website: http://maps.geog.umd.edu/

6. 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.

7. 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).

8. 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.

10. 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).

11. FIRMS: Usage & Statistics

12. August 6, 2006 – May 12, 2010

13. 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

14. FIRMS Usage Example: Australian Bushfires of 2009

15. FIRMS Usage Example: SMS Text Alerts in South Africa • FIRMS customized the email alerts system for South Africa’s National Disaster Management Center and ESKOM – a South African power companyto 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

16. Current subscribers to the Email Alerts program

17. 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.

18. 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) ”

19. Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS) at FAO • The GFIMS site at UN FAO. • Available in three languages (English, French, Spanish)

20. 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 Next Steps

21. 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/10.1145/1394445.1394479 In Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Designing interactive systems pp. 315-322 (Cape Town, South Africa ACM). For more information… http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/

22. 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 Colleagues: Minnie Wongand Giuseppe Molinario from the Department of Geography, University of Maryland

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