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High-tech firefighting: what's hot now, what's on drawing board

Every year wildfires scorch millions of acres of US land and cost the nation billions of dollars. We still know little about how wildland fires spread, and they can take weeks to bring under control. Here's a look at seven cutting-edge technologies that are helping to fill in the gaps in firefighting capability.

6. Satellite imagery

R.E. Lafever/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
This shows an artist’s concept of the FUEGO satellite. It would snap digital photos of the western United States every few seconds in search of hot spots that could be newly ignited fires.

Firefighters know that time works in favor of a blaze. The longer a wildfire burns, the bigger it gets. If firefighters can get to a brushfire while it is still small, they stand a better chance of putting it out before it threatens people and buildings.

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have designed a satellite that can alert firefighters to small wildfires before they become very difficult to control.

Satellites already provide information about the breadth of wildfires, but the Fire Urgency Estimator in Geosynchronous Orbit satellite, or FUEGO, would be able to use infrared filters to detect fires sooner.

“Right now, we lose a lot of time because fires are already big by the time we see them,” remote sensing expert Maggi Kelly said in a statement. “FUEGO is designed for early detection of smaller fires.” The satellite is currently in development.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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