When a forest fire breaks out in Spain, the first image that usually reaches television is that of a seaplane discharging thousands of liters of water or that of dozens of firefighters fighting the flames. However, The battle begins much earlier. And, in many cases, it starts hundreds of kilometers high.
Today a complex network of European satellites (the Copernicus network) and Americans (the FIRMS system) continuously observes the Earth’s surface in search of small changes in temperature, columns of smoke or alterations in vegetation that can reveal the birth of a fire. But your job is no longer just about locating the fire: It also helps predict where it will move, which areas are most at risk and how to organize the response of emergency services.
One of the great allies of the European Copernicus program is the Sentinel family of satellites. While an optical satellite works like a giant camera, The Sentinels have other instruments that record infrared radiation, capable of detecting temperature differences invisible to the human eye.. Thanks to this, they can identify hot spots even when they are still difficult to see from the ground or when smoke reduces visibility. In parallel, Meteorological satellites monitor the evolution of winds, humidity and air temperaturedecisive factors to anticipate how a fire may evolve during the following hours.
So, finding a fire is just the first step. The real difficulty is quickly answering much more complex questions. How much ground can you cover in an hour? In what direction will it move? What populations could be threatened? Where and when should air resources be deployed? To answer them, the Copernicus European Emergency Management Service (CEMS) It combines satellite images, weather models and ground observations to generate maps that are used by Civil Protection and firefighting teams during an emergency.
The amount of information generated by satellites would be impossible to analyze manually. That is why more and more systems incorporate artificial intelligence. The algorithms distinguish real fires from other heat sources, such as industrial facilities or very hot rock surfaces, reducing false alarms and speeding up the sending of notices to emergency services. AI also helps integrate data from dozens of different satellites to build a nearly continuous map of the evolution of the fire.
Thanks to this, firefighters receive very different information than they did just a decade ago. In addition to the position of the flame front, they can have maps of the thermal intensity of the fire, the speed of spread, the expected direction of the smoke or the areas where the vegetation remains drier and could favor new outbreaks. With this information it is possible to decide where to concentrate air resources, which roads should be cut or when it is necessary to order preventive evacuations. And alert the health services.
Satellites make it possible to follow the dispersion of enormous columns of smoke and suspended particles. This information is especially useful for health services, which can issue recommendations aimed at people with asthma, respiratory diseases or cardiovascular problems, as well as prepare hospitals and health centers for a possible increase in admissions related to poor air quality.
Finally, when the fire has been controlled, the work of the satellites continues. Before and after images allow precise calculation of the burned surfaceestimate biomass loss, evaluate erosion risk or plan forest restoration.
All this information also serves to improve the models that will try to predict future fires. The combination of satellites, artificial intelligence, weather stations and ground sensors will make it possible to identify regions where high temperatures, low humidity, extremely dry vegetation and strong winds coincide. In other words, Space systems are beginning to function as a true forecast of fire risk.
All this technology pursues a single objective: to gain minutes. It is true that a satellite does not put out a fire. But if you manage to detect an outbreak 15 minutes earlier, if you allow the first means to be sent 20 minutes earlier or to evacuate a town half an hour earlier, you can completely change the outcome. While this text is closing, the Current Wildfires website (using data from ESA and NASA) points out that in Spain there are 199 active fires, of which 120 are critical.