Pyrocene Phoenixes| Spot That Fire V3.0
Spot That Fire V3.0
Earth data analysis for a preventive estimation of wildfire risk and economic impact
Summary
Our project aims towards the development of an algorithm to rank the wildfire risk of an area both by the probability of its natural occurrence and the economic impact it would have on its surroundings. Thus, we look to synthesize data on fire records, local weather, topography, vegetation, roads, and population centers; in a unique forecast interface made available for policy making and disaster prevention. Given the wide variety of ways in which wildfires burn across the world, a numerical indicator of risk helps cut through the assessment of the distinct involved parameters to use in an early answer scenario.
How We Addressed This Challenge
We propose the creation of a web-based tool that evaluates the natural risk of occurrence of wildfire by geographic areas across the world, similar to tools used to analyze the risk of flood, earthquake, or volcanic events.
This is important due to the amount of variables involved in wildfire management which are an obstacle (especially for governments without enough resources to adress this) to answer and attack the problem in time before it escalates out of control, threatening public infrastructure and causing millions of dollars in damage.
Our project adresses this issue by offering a processed risk and loss estimate in case of wildfire event. Although the information we worked on is readily available through the distinct space agencies, we fear politicians, citizens, and small businesspeople may not know how to interpretate it; so through our proposed tool they can visualize this information at any time. We believe integrating the greater scope of state forest services with the efforts of the common people is key to preparing against the growing issue of fire.
How We Developed This Project
Our team comes from the northwestern tip of Mexico, in the state of Baja California. Not only do we constantly hear of the struggles of our northern neighbours in California fighting against wildfire, but last year we also suffered from an extended fire season in our coast ranges chaparral around the cities of Tecate, Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada (four out of five headtowns!). Mexico's fire policy is not a priority, since the country has preferred to orient its disaster budget towards hurricane and earthquake relief, two other problems which have been way more common, since fire-prone chaparral is a minority biome in the country, only existing in Baja California.
Our main challenge was getting to understand the data. At first, we found a myriad of resources and we didn't know which should we consider. We read through as much as we could, and decided to adopt our approach as an improvement to existing solutions. We found a tool presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy by a Rodríguez et al, a group of researchers from Universidad de Córdoba. This tool, called Visual Seveif, is a computer software which simulates the impact of fire by introducing specific data about the area being affected: temperature, slope, biomass, etc. We thought such a tool could be upgradated by feeding it open, real time satellite data, and by making its environment more simple and accesible to the public.
We have no experience designing websites or apps, so we set to present our idea of how such a product could look if it were completely re-coded for such environments. You may see our vision in our slides available a couple sections down.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We were inspired by experimenting with the data made available by NASA, USGS, and JAXA. Watching the worldmaps and how they changed with each variable and with the flow of time offered a much valuable insight into the dynamics of planet Earth. The links to our sources are available at the end of this page.
-NASA EOSDIS Earthdata Worldview: we introduced parameters on drought hazard, land surface temperature, vegetation, population density, and thermal anomalies. By stacking this up we hoped to see places where fire would be most devastating.
-USGS EarthExplorer
-JAXA Jasmes SGLI: we also consulted here for parameters on temperature, vegetation, and aerosols.
And the forementioned research "VISUAL-SEVEIF, a tool for integrating fire behavior simulation and economic evaluation of the impact of Wildfires", by authors Rodríguez y Silva, Francisco; Martínez, Juan Ramón Molina; Machuca, Miguel Ángel Herrera; Leal, Jesús Mª Rodríguez. We considered their methods to be complete and were our main inspiration towards this proposal, which could be considered an upgrade.
Project Demo
Data & Resources
-NASA EOSDIS Earthdata Worldview
Rodríguez y Silva, F., Martínez, J., Machuca, M., Leal, J. (2013) "VISUAL-SEVEIF, a tool for integrating fire behavior simulation and economic evaluation of the impact of Wildfires" Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: climate change and wildfires. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-245.