Feasibility of Airborne Wildfire Monitoring & modeling to Deconstruct the Fire Equation for Tactical Response

The proposed project addresses the gap between advances in present-day technology and modeling and their transfer into operations. These improved forecasts and fire simulations would increase the effectiveness of firefighting efforts which would be a boon for commercial success.Our survey of fire bosses indicates that the demand for accurate fire behavior forecasts is severely unmet. Current modeling efforts available to fire bosses are largely unsuccessful at forecasting the details of extreme fire behavior. The commercial future of a scalable solution that delivers both, better observations and better forecasts is positive. The proposed project addresses the gap between advances in present-day technology and modeling and their transfer into operations. These improved forecasts and fire simulations would increase the effectiveness of firefighting efforts which would be a boon for commercial success.The proponent's blended observing/modeling solution represents a major leap forward in situational awareness and hazard mitigation. The envisioned UAS platform will have the necessary performance, payload, and range to measure key quantities of wildfires, such as the fire-perimeter location and overall 'fire weather'. The proponents also envision the ability (and necessity) to provide a visualization product in near real-time to fire management and suppression crew leaders indicating 'where the fire is' and 'where it will go' and other key indicators of the wildfire state.The advantage of this combined observe-and-model approach over current incident monitoring and forecasting techniques is that it provides observations at high temporal resolution (i.e., hours) and coupled forecasts of both fire spread and fire-generated weather such as pyroconvection. High-resolution observations benefit situational awareness and public safety by answering the question, "Where is the fire now?"Demand already exceeds the supply of infrared observing capabilities in the fire management space, and the proposed service would enter the market poised to make immediate contributions to fire managers. In addition, it will provide a commercially viable product that can be integrated into wildfire mitigation strategies that is furthermore congruent with the current information stream of today's incident commanders.The inherent coordination with fire agencies during Phases I and II introduces the relevant decision-makers to the benefits of the improved fire behavior and fire spread forecasts.Improved fire forecasting leads to improved firefighting outcomes which will decrease the magnitude of cascading hazard impacts, including fewer debris flows, less black carbon in the atmosphere destroying ozone, less snowmelt via black carbon deposition, decreased CO2 release, and less wildland habitat destruction. Additionally, improved firefighting outcomes lessen the financial and cultural losses that fires bring to our National and State Parks and Forests, as well as the impacts on the health and well-being of firefighters and the public.