Forest Fire Advanced System Technology (FFAST): A Conceptual Design for Detection and Mapping

The Forest Fire Advanced System Technology (FFAST) project is developing a data system to provide near-real-time forest fire information to fire management at the fire Incident Command Post (ICP). The completed conceptual design defined an integrated forest fire detection and mapping system that is based upon technology available in the 1990's. System component technologies identified for an end-to-end system include airborne mounted thermal infrared (IR) linear array detectors, automatic onboard data georeferencing and signal processing, satellite communications links, and advanced data integration and display. The conceptual design detailed the preferred system configuration that warrants continued refinement and development for operational use in the 1990's. The FFAST design will be the baseline for the next generation of forest fire detection and mapping systems after the year 2000. Thermal IR sensing for forest fire detection and mapping has been under development and use by the USDA Forest Service since the FIRESCAN Research Project began in 1962 (Hirsch 1968). Presented at the Symposium on Wildland Fire 2000, April 27-30, 1987, South Lake Tahoe, California. Member of the Technical Staff, Observational Systems Division. California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. Calif.; and Advanced Electronic Systems Group Leader, Boise Interagency Fire Center, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Boise, Idaho. Project FIRESCAN was a study to examine the use of airborne, IR line scanners for detecting latent forest fires and for mapping the perimeter of large fires. The original Forest Service airborne. IR, line-scanning systems were based upon research conducted during the FIRESCAN Project. The Forest Service has used fire mapping systems operationally since 1964 (Warren and Wilson 1981). The initial airborne systems were stand-alone IR systems designed to produce hard-copy images, onboard the aircraft, of thermal characteristics of the terrain and fire. Timely delivery of fire imagery to a fire camp was a problem as the imagery was delivered either via drop tube, conditions permitting, or hand delivered via ground transportation from the nearest airport. The original scanner units became obsolete due to improvements in technology and the increasing difficulty in maintaining the units for operational readiness. Replacement parts for the scanner units were difficult to find and in some cases had to be custom built. The Fire Logistics Airborne Mapping Equipment (FLAME) project, a joint effort between the Forest Service and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was charged with designing, developing, and implementing a modern, airborne, IR detection system with improved performance and flexibility over the original systems (Enmark 1984). As a result of the FLAME project, the Forest Service's Texas Instruments RS-7 scanner was replaced with a hybrid system providing increased spatial resolution (instantaneous field of view of 1 milliradian), improved response time and data capture, and real-time video display and storage.