ADVANCED FIRE INFORMATION SYSTEM AFIS I AFIS is the 1 st satellite based, near real time fire information system developed to fulfill the needs of both fire fighters and researchers in Southern Africa. MODIS fires detected between 1 – 3 September 2004 MODIS Direct Broadcast reception circle at CSIR SAC Satellite Sensors MSG SEVIRIAqua & Terra MODIS Fire Detection Algorithms Geo stationery orbit 12 spectral bands 4.8 km resolution 15 minute repeat cycle Polar orbit 36 spectral bands 1 km resolution 6 hourly repeat cycle GIS Analysis & SMS Alert System Daily / Weekly Report Service MSG Algorithm The current MSG algorithm is based on the contextual approach as described by Flasse & Ceccato in The contextual algorithm which was developed for the AVHRR sensor, makes use of the 3.9µm and 10.8µm bands to discriminate fire pixels from background pixels. In summary, the algorithm calculates an approximation to the expected background temperature, and then tests a pixel to see if its temperature exceeds this background temperature by a statistically significant degree. The CSIR SAC is currently working on a new algorithm that exploits the high update rate of the MSG satellite to derive a multi temporal fire detection algorithm. This is achieved by using a Kalman filter to predict the expected temperature, which can then be used to identify pixels that deviate significantly from their expected values. Early results have indicated significant improvements in detection accuracy with good comparisons with MODIS detections. MODIS Algorithm The MODIS Rapid Response (RR) code has been integrated in to the CSIR SAC MODIS DB system. The RR code ingests MODIS L0 data and produces a text file containing fire location information for each overpass. Fire detection is performed using a contextual algorithm (Giglio et al., 2003) that exploits the strong emission of mid-infrared radiation from fires. The algorithm examines each pixel of the MODIS swath, and ultimately assigns to each one of the following classes: missing data, cloud, water, non-fire, fire, or unknown. A set of shell scripts has been developed to handle operational GIS analysis requests. These shell scripts enable the provision of operational fire information to users within pre defined areas with the possibility to also define buffer zones. Current example: The shell routines are currently used to identify fires within a 5 km buffer around all Transmission lines for South Africa’s biggest power utility (ESKOM). AFIS has the ability of providing near real time fire alerts to users in Southern Africa through or SMS messages. Alert information is generated by the GIS analysis scripts that run for each satellite overpass. Current example: ESKOM’s Transmission line managers as well as their Control Centre receives SMS messages as soon as a fire is detected within a 5 km buffer of any power line. Information in the SMS message will include, Latitude, Longitude, distance to closest pylon, line name, date and time of the fire occurrence. AFIS can also provide based fire reports for pre defined areas. Users can specify an area of not more than 2 x 2 degrees in size and receive daily and weekly reports of fires within the pre defined zone. The advantage of the based system is that it doesn’t require the user to log into the web interface but instead they receive a daily or weekly report in their inbox. The s could be used for generating monthly reports of fire and also in creating animations. Each contains a referenced.JPG image of the pre defined area displaying all fires detected within the last day or week. Additionally, a table is provided with information about each fire located. AFIS Sensor Web Fire Mapper displaying MODIS fires in Southern Africa. This map is currently being used by numerous organisations in the SADC region. The South African map displays numerous data layers such as the ESKOM Transmission lines. Additional data layers such as National parks, roads, towns and higher resolution satellite imagery are also available. The map to the left displays a fire beneath a power line detected by both satellite systems. The purple pixels represent MSG and the red pixels are from MODIS. Contact: