Validation analyses of an operational fire monitoring product: The Hazard Mapping System

Abstract

Vegetation fires are becoming increasingly important especially in regions where the proximity to urban areas can result in large populations being directly impacted by such events. During emergency situations, accurate fire location data becomes crucial to assess the affected areas as well as to track smoke plumes and delineate evacuation plans. In this study, the performance of the NOAA/NESDIS Hazard Mapping System (HMS) is evaluated. The system combines automated and analyst‐made fire detections to monitor fires across the conterminous United States. Using 30‐m‐spatial‐resolution ASTER imagery as the main instantaneous validation data, commission and omission error estimates are reported for a subset of HMS automated and analyst‐based fire pixels derived from the Terra MODIS and GOES data.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services (NESDIS) under grant NESDIS‐NESDISPO‐2006‐2000435 and administered by the Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies (CICS) at the University of Maryland College Park, Maryland. We thank all image analysts at the Satellite Analysis Branch at NOAA/NESDIS for their great support during the implementation of this study.