Remote Sensing in Alberta Wildfire Management

PROJECTS   CONTACTS:

Generally speaking, a scope of Remote Sensing Analist job is to create and integrate information crucial to Alberta wildfire management to reduce and mitigate the impact of wildfires across Alberta. The position acts as an expert resource both in terms of direct technology and knowledge and in the development of strategies and tactics. Role involves creativity in the fields of remote sensing, data analysis and computer modeling. The Branch strategy is founded upon the CFS watchwords of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Remote sensing may contribute into each of those efforts.

The main funcitions

Mitigation:

FireSmart community planning can benefit from quantifying applied treatments, which can be correlated to fire intensity and thus community safety. As reliability and trust into remote sensing products through field validation is built, a RS analyst may generate a quicker and better understanding of mitigation impacts and prioritis of treatments.

Preparedness:

Reliable fuel information is critical to fire prediction and Remote sensing can help improve accuracy. Values at Risk become extremely important as Branch moves to risk management, not just wildfire management. Again, remote sensing may provide or update that critical layer as they get involved in: (1) Clasification of forest vegetation and forest fuels in areas outside of AVI (Alberta vegetation inventory) cover and within historical burns to create new information for Fire Behaviour Prediction System and Wildfire Threat Analysis; (2) Data analysis to create intelligence for input into fire management models; (3) Deploying computer modeling techniques to develop probability component of wildfire risk assessment and wildfire effects on valued resources;

Response:

The imagery for a large incident is valuable for response planning. It lends a greater strategic, rather than tactical value. Infra Red scanning continues to be a very powerful tactical tool for mobilization on an incident.

Recovery:

POST FIRE ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING perform burn severity assessment to quantify fire effects and the post-fire conditions on burn units. This helps forestry officers to plan for wood salvaging operations right after a fire. In case, tree planted cutblocks were burned new plans for tree replanting have to be put in place. Few years after wildfires took place, existing historic burns have to be classified for new regrown vegetation and forest fuels. The CBI burn severity maps have been very valuable in Prescribed Burning. They have been used to gauge and depict how effective we were at achieving resource objectives generated from burning objectives. Likewise, supported by field validation, they can help guide recovery strategies. In collaboration with foresters and biologists, burn severity sensing can lend information towards species suitability and riparian impacts from erosion and run-off. In conjunction with ground validation, they might be tied to FWI values as a predictive tool. Supplemented with scanning they can also inform community re-entry options. POST FIRE MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT perform burn severity assessment to quantify fire effects and the post-fire conditions on burn units. This helps forestry officers to plan for wood salvaging operations right after a fire. In case, tree planted cutblocks were burned new plans for tree replanting have to be put in place. Few years after wildfires took place, existing historic burns have to be classified for new regrown vegetation and forest fuels.