The NOAA/NESDIS Wildland Fire Program: Recent and Expected Advances in Satellite Product Service Delivery

The NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Wildland Fire Program was established in late 2021, with an overarching goal of improving operational satellite product service delivery for critical wildland fire use cases. Stakeholder engagement and capability assessments have identified critical gaps, such as inadequate response time to the ignition of fires that have the potential to impact life and property, incomplete situational awareness for wildfire incident management, fire remote sensing artifacts that impact the estimation of fire emissions, and data dissemination and access barriers. With support from Fiscal Year 2022 Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the NESDIS Wildland Fire Program has initiated several new projects aimed at addressing critical user community needs through improved exploitation of satellite remote sensing and service delivery. Within a year after the start, the projects already resulted in several new or improved capabilities, including the Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) and improved wildland fire emissions estimates. In this presentation, we will highlight recent advances in NOAA’s satellite products and services for wildland fire applications and discuss how these capabilities are expected to evolve and transition to operations.