Citation

Johnston JM, Jackson N, McFayden C, Ngo Phong L, Lawrence B, Davignon D, Wooster MJ, van Mierlo H, Thompson DK, Cantin AS, Johnston D, Johnston LM, Sloane M, Ramos R, Lynham TJ. Sensors (Basel) 2020; 20(18): e5081.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/s20185081

PMID

32906725

Abstract

In 2019 the Canadian Space Agency initiated development of a dedicated wildfire monitoring satellite (WildFireSat) mission. The intent of this mission is to support operational wildfire management, smoke and air quality forecasting, and wildfire carbon emissions reporting. In order to deliver the mission objectives, it was necessary to identify the technical and operational challenges which have prevented broad exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) in Canadian wildfire management and to address these challenges in the mission design. In this study we emphasize the first objective by documenting the results of wildfire management end-user engagement activities which were used to identify the key Fire Management Functionalities (FMFs) required for an Earth Observation wildfire monitoring system. These FMFs are then used to define the User Requirements for the Canadian Wildland Fire Monitoring System (CWFMS) which are refined here for the WildFireSat mission. The User Requirements are divided into Observational, Measurement, and Precision requirements and form the foundation for the design of the WildFireSat mission (currently in Phase-A, summer 2020).

Language: en

Keywords

remote sensing; forest fire; air quality; carbon emissions; earth observation; satellite design; user requirements; wildfire; wildfire detection; wildfire management; wildfire monitoring; wildland fire