Measuring radiant emissions from entire prescribed fires with ground, airborne and satellite sensors – RxCADRE 2012
Matthew B. Dickinson A M , Andrew T. Hudak B , Thomas Zajkowski C K , E. Louise Loudermilk D , Wilfrid Schroeder E , Luke Ellison F G , Robert L. Kremens H , William Holley I L , Otto Martinez I L , Alexander Paxton I , Benjamin C. Bright B , Joseph J. O’Brien D , Benjamin Hornsby D , Charles Ichoku F , Jason Faulring H , Aaron Gerace H , David Peterson J and Joseph Mauceri H
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, 359 Main Road, Delaware, OH 43015, USA.
B USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 1221 South Main Street, Moscow, ID 83843, USA.
C USDA Forest Service, Remote Sensing Applications Center, 2222 W. 2300 South Salt Lake City, UT 84119, USA.
D USDA Forest Service, Center for Forest Disturbance Science, Southern Research Center, 320 Green Street, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
E Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
F NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
G Science Systems and Applications, Inc., 10210 Greenbelt Road, Suite 600, Lanham, MD 20706, USA.
H Rochester Institute of Technology, Center for Imaging Science, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA.
I US Air Force, 96th Test Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Niceville, FL 32542, USA.
J National Research Council, 7 Grace Hopper Avenue, Monterey, CA 93943, USA.
K Present address: Institute for Transportation Research and Education, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
L Deceased.
M Corresponding author. Email: mbdickinson@fs.fed.us
International Journal of Wildland Fire 25(1) 48-61 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF15090
Submitted: 11 September 2014 Accepted: 30 July 2015 Published: 23 December 2015
Abstract
Characterising radiation from wildland fires is an important focus of fire science because radiation relates directly to the combustion process and can be measured across a wide range of spatial extents and resolutions. As part of a more comprehensive set of measurements collected during the 2012 Prescribed Fire Combustion and Atmospheric Dynamics Research (RxCADRE) field campaign, we used ground, airborne and spaceborne sensors to measure fire radiative power (FRP) from whole fires, applying different methods to small (2 ha) and large (>100 ha) burn blocks. For small blocks (n = 6), FRP estimated from an obliquely oriented long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera mounted on a boom lift were compared with FRP derived from combined data from tower-mounted radiometers and remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). For large burn blocks (n = 3), satellite FRP measurements from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensors were compared with near-coincident FRP measurements derived from a LWIR imaging system aboard a piloted aircraft. We describe measurements and consider their strengths and weaknesses. Until quantitative sensors exist for small RPAS, their use in fire research will remain limited. For oblique, airborne and satellite sensors, further FRP measurement development is needed along with greater replication of coincident measurements, which we show to be feasible.
Additional keywords: fire behaviour, fire radiative power, MODIS, remote sensing, unmanned aircraft systems, VIIRS, WASP.
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