Space Apps Challenge 2018

Firefighter

About the project

Record-breaking wildfires have destroyed thousands of buildings and have ended plenty of lives during the past years. There should be cooperation between governmental and global organizations just like NASA’s Satellites and local fire departments. Using the evolution of technology we want to build a phone-based app that helps engage the public in wildfire prevention and early wildfire detection. The purpose of the following app is to inform all citizens about the breakout of a wildfire the fastest way possible. Hopefully, many people can avoid being trapped in horrible situations.

Detection of the fire

The application will be connected to several satellite systems that are currently available for fire monitoring with different capabilities in terms of spatial resolution, sensitivity, spectral bands, and times and frequencies of overpasses. Such satellites are:

• the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) that measures electromagnetic radiation (light reflected and heat emitted) from our planet, The thermal infrared band can detect actual hotspots and active fires.
• The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) satellites that can aquire images every 15–30 minutes, at up to 1km resolution in visible light, for the detection of smoke, and 4km resolution in thermal infrared to directly detect the heat of fires.
• The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) that is a measuring device that provides data regarding ozone levels around the world. These data make it possible to observe a variety of Earth events including forest fires, dust storms and biomass burning.

Our Application

• Should be funded by a certain governmental organization.
• Can be controlled from local authorities and fire departments to update data such as local hotspots after or during an emergency case.
• Activates an alarm on your cellphone in case of a fire breakout within a 20km radius.
• Provides an SOS button that notifies of your location and your emergency to the local fire department and other neighbors using the app.
• Shows the location of everyone using the app only during a fire breakout. They appear on the map as a ✔ if they are marked safe, as a ⭕ if they called an emergency and as an ✖ if they haven’t responded in any way.
• Allows the user to add emergency contacts that also get notified automatically when a fire breaks out within your area. The user must give permission to the app to charge the mobile company.

Source

Global Fire Monitoring