California wildfire spread derived using VIIRS satellite observations and an object-based tracking system.

Area of Science:

• Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Remote Sensing
• Geospatial Analysis

Background:

• Wildfire regimes are changing, posing risks to human health and ecosystems.
• Current understanding of wildfire spread and behavior is limited by data gaps.
• Systematic quantification of fire progression and impacts is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel object-based system for tracking individual wildfire progression.
• To utilize Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) active fire detections.
• To enhance wildfire monitoring and data product generation.

Main Methods:

• An object-based system was developed to cluster and track fire pixels.
• The system uses half-daily VIIRS active fire detections (375m resolution).
• Fires are tracked by appending pixels to existing objects or creating new ones, enabling automated updates of fire attributes, perimeters, and active fronts.

Main Results:

• The system successfully mapped California fires from 2012-2020.
• It allows for near-real-time delineation of fire perimeters and active fronts.
• The approach provides a systematic data stream for fire event analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed system offers a novel method for tracking wildfire progression using satellite data.
• This approach can improve the calibration and evaluation of fire spread models.
• The data stream supports near-real-time wildfire emissions estimation and fire forecast model initialization.