it was called one of the worst forest
fires in a hundred years the summer
Wileman jello stone National Park burned
out of control extreme heat low rainfall
and powerful rims fuel fires that
eventually swept over a third of the
park the key to controlling such a
crisis is knowing where the fire is and
where it's spreading the most important
tool for the Forest Service is an
infrared camera system capable of seeing
through smoke to pick out hot swap some
fire fronts from the air talk by
analyzing infrared strip photography
interpreters plus these areas on the map
for firefighters to use hot areas appear
dark wrinkled areas wipe the system
designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion lab
in Pasadena California has been a
standard firefighting resource for many
years in the near future JPL will design
a new system with the Forest Service
that locates fires transmits the
information to a portable ground station
and automatically plots them on a map
all within minutes studies made at
NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain
View California have also resulted in
major breakthroughs in forest fire
remote sensing learning these advances
the national condom Forest Service drug
passenger dynamos
eames agreed to fly two of its aerial
observatories
both give a big picture view of can
fire fighting strategists aboard NASA's
c-130
made on the spot a value
masses of the observatory
space it was able to accomplish infrared
remote sensing of the parks 4,000 square
miles in about two hours simultaneously
transmitting all this data to scientists
on the ground in West Yellowstone within
hours maps were generated for
firefighters be upon all these systems
were only flown a few times over
Yellowstone the technology proved it
could help NASA Ames data endless jeff
meyers I think our first flight on
September second we found six or seven
large fires and remote areas that they
were not aware of the remote sensing
capabilities of the er-2 were also used
face blazing walls of fire
repeat I this is the visible red green
and blue channels put together which
gives us natural color as the human eye
would see it it's not possible to see
flames or fire fronts on this from this
altitude and with a heavy smoke on the
ground so it is necessary to go to the
infrared to see what's actively burning
the fire front comes immediately
apparent the yellow and orange areas are
what is already burned these the
purplish appearing areas dense lodgepole
pine as yet to burn you can see how the
fire has been carried by the wind
direction through these two corridors on
either side of the Old Faithful
community
finding new ways to monitor fires and
study their influence on global climate'
is a NASA goal and saving protected
lands a vital by-product nasa's earth
resources aircraft and advanced remote
sensing
find solutions to one of nature's
age-old problems
you