The Integration of NASA's Land Information System in Alaska for the Wildland Fire Community's Pre-event Operations

The NASA/SPoRT Center implemented an instance of the Land Information System in Alaska (LIS-AK) in support of the analysis of land surface (e.g. snow, vegetation) and subsurface (e.g. soil moisture) conditions in remote areas with very little in situ observations and to complement retrievals from low-earth orbiting satellite instruments. While hydrology applications are a core utility of LIS, the BLM Alaska Fire Service was able to integrate LIS output into the interagency Alaska Wildland Fire Information site (akfireinfo.com) to assess subsurface moisture, vegetation health, and snow cover as it relates to pre-wildfire conditions. The LIS snow depth output was used as a proxy for snow cover to improve timing for the start and stop of accumulating wildfire indices. Once the snow melt had occurred, the LIS output of soil moisture at multiple depths was able to provide the spatial distribution and trends of root zone moisture for analysis and monitoring of pre-wildfire conditions. The LIS also utilities a near real-time Green Vegetation Fraction, 7-day composite product for the monitoring of vegetation health and response to weather conditions. The vast areas of Alaska could thus be monitored for stressed vegetation that may be prone to wildfires and this information was available to field operations on a daily basis. The Alaska Fire Service was able to collaborate with the SPoRT team to acquire geospatial output of LIS for use within their web-mapping portal, and hence, the overlay of other geo-referenced datasets for easier integration of LIS into operations. While the LIS impacts to the operational wildfire community are shown via these transition activities, there are also other potential areas for LIS data to be incorporated into fire management in Alaska.