A Demonstration of Potential of GOES-R to Incident Meteorologists: Future Use of Satellites for Weather Support to Firefighters

National Weather Service (NWS) and National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) personnel developed a special session that showed the promise of new satellite data and products from future satellite systems such as GOES-R. Satellite data has become a critical input to the identification and tracking of fire sources day and night and the transport of smoke from fires. An example of this is the use of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data for fire hotspot detection, and its use in the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). Stakeholders such as NWS Incident Meteorologists IMETS, US Forest Service personnel, Air Quality forecasters, and emergency managers have found MODIS and other satellite data invaluable to their response efforts. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R-Series (GOES-R) and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) will provide finer resolution data and new capabilities such as the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). These new capabilities are anticipated to have direct benefit in support of the fire mission, in an effort to meet continued high resolution and rapid-scan imagery requirements. The special session at the workshop focused on the continuity of these new satellite systems with current systems and the possible future application of GOES-R data.

Specifically, pre-selected Incident Meteorologiosts (IMETs), attending the 2011 IMET Workshop in Boise, Idaho, were split up into two teams (five each) to examine current and future satellite data for the infamous Witch Fires of October 2007 (fires that paralyzed areas east and north of San Diego). Two customer representatives, one from the National Park Service and the other working for NIFC, participated on each team. The IMETs had volunteered to be a part of the demonstration within the previous 6 months, and represented 3 NWS Regions. The simulated GOES-R data was created by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), which used model information/algorithms to create GOES-R like images from its future sensors; care was taken to transition to GOES-R spatial and temporal resolution from current data. Personnel managing FX-Net software at Boulder (which is used by IMETs on deployment to see weather parameters like they would at their home office) ingested CIRA's output as well as other observations and model information for the Witch Fires. One team examined the case with data available in 2007 (i.e., from GOES-11), while the other team investigated it with future data (i.e, GOES-R). This was intended as a real-time situation, with data from other sources, with IMETs briefing their customer. Teams compared notes at the end. Results of this initial demonstration will be presented, as well as thoughts for future demos involving differing fuel loads and population densities.