Wildfire Detection Notifications for Impact-based Decision Support Services in Oklahoma Using Geostationary Super Rapid Scan Satellite Imagery

On 18 February 2016, wildfires burned 52,480 ha and damaged or destroyed 656 structures across Oklahoma. During this high-impact fire episode, meteorologists at the Norman, Oklahoma, National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office leveraged experimental 1-min Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite-14 (GOES-14) imager Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) to create a text messaging-based notification tool within the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System-2 (AWIPS-2) to alert officials of remotely sensed wildfire hot spots. These notifications allowed Oklahoma Forestry Services and Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management to rapidly deploy local firefighting resources to the site of newly detected wildfire ignitions, in some instances before emergency 911 calls were received. This presentation will discuss the Python tool developed for use in AWIPS-2 during real-time operations and will show examples of SRSOR sampling of the fire outbreak, particularly of the Buffalo Fire in northwestern Oklahoma. How this tool demonstrates the use of GOES-R era capabilities in future Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS) for tactical wildland firefighting support will be shown.