By 2024, firefighters will be using satellite imagery to detect forest fires

Climate change is forcing scientists to come up with new ways to fight forest fires.

Joshua Johnston, a researcher and analyst at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, said he is developing a new type of satellite that will monitor and relay information about fires to crews on the ground in real time.

Currently, information about forest fires is gathered by experts who fly in planes over regions, anapproach Johnston said won't be sufficient much longer.

"Right now if you have a large fire on the landscape, one that you didn't catch really small, you have to keep an eye on it," Johnston said. "And you've got to make decisions about how you're going to respond to that fire."

That typically means an experienced observer has to fly out over the fire and assess the situation before returning with their recommendation on how to react.

"It's a really good process and our fire managers do an excellent job of it but it means using aircraft, and it means that somebody who is very experienced in fire suppression decision making is stuck doing that job, as opposed to actually contributing to a direct attack somewhere," Johnston said.

The satellite mission, named WildFireSat, will provide accurate data in real time, freeing up more resources to fight fires. It will collect the data in late afternoon or early evening when fires are their most active, Johnston said.

"From that we are going to generate a kind of comprehensive intelligence on what fires are currently doing," Johnston said. "How big they are, where they're headed, how intense they are and basically kick that out the door to the fire managers within minutes of the overpass."

"This is really important because it won't be long before climate change is going to force us into a position where the number of fires on the landscape that need to be monitored are going to be far more than we're capable of flying."

Johnston estimates the new satellite will be ready for action in the next four to five years