The USDA announced additional steps to safeguard western communities in the face of increasingly dangerous and intense wildfires. The agency is building advanced wildfire detection capabilities using satellite technology.
An agreement between USDA’s Forest Service, the Interior Department, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allows the use of NOAA’s Geostationary and Operation Environmental Satellite. This new agreement will use advanced remote sensing capabilities to improve the speed and accuracy of wildfire detection. “This partnership is one of the many ways we’re investing in technology to improve firefighter and community safety,” says Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Wildland firefighting will always require highly skilled individuals on the ground, but with more real-time information, we can reduce the risks to pilots and improve our response time, reducing the risk to impacted communities.”
The satellite observations are not only valuable for detecting wildfires but will also be critical for observing smoke from those fires.