michael kleerbaum (2:2432/203) wrote to Alle at 10:00 on 29 Jun 2003:

 mk> June 18, 2003

 mk> STATE OF ALASKA USES QUICKBIRD SATELLITE IMAGERY FOR FIRE RESPONSE 

 mk> LONGMONT, Colo. -- DigitalGlobeTM announced today that its
 mk> QuickBird satellite images were recently used by the State of
 mk> Alaska's Forestry Division to help firefighters navigate wildfires.
 mk> Fires began blazing through forested areas about 80 miles south of
 mk> Fairbanks on May 26 and have since been contained.

 mk> The 60-centimeter resolution black-and-white QuickBird(tm) images,
 mk> collected in August 2002, show trails and roads, building
 mk> structures and fire pronevegetation. Firefighters used the images
 mk> for locational mapping to determine where endangered structures
 mk> existed, which residents should be evacuated, where emergency
 mk> personnel should be dispatched and where firelines should be
 mk> constructed.

 mk> Large print-outs of the QuickBird images were posted on fire
 mk> department dispatch walls so fire dispatches could quickly map out
 mk> response routes, while smaller copies were distributed to division
 mk> supervisors for key emergency personnel as they were dispatched to
 mk> fight fires.

 mk> According to Marc Lee, Fairbanks Area forester for the Alaska
 mk> Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Forestry Division, the
 mk> QuickBird images proved to be critical resource for quick responses
 mk> by the Division of Forestry andcooperating fire departments. "Using
 mk> the images, we were able to better locate threatened structures and
 mk> improve our deployment of firefighting forces. We identified
 mk> several structures and one house that had been destroyed," said
 mk> Lee.

 mk> "We also added power line coverages in a geographic information
 mk> system (GIS) so we would know which power lines were threatened and
 mk> where to turn offelectricity, so firefighters' lives wouldn't be
 mk> endangered," Lee added. 

 mk> Wildfires are a common occurrence in the interior of Alaska, where
 mk> black spruce trees, an extremely fire prone species, are abundant.
 mk> The 2.44- meter resolution, multispectral QuickBird images were
 mk> used to identify black spruce as well as trails and ponds. In the
 mk> past, Alaska firefighters had relied onone-inch-to-the-mile
 mk> quadrangle maps to help them navigate their way around an area
 mk> during a fire. The quad maps do not indicate trails, roads,
 mk> structures, vegetation such as black spruce, and many other
 mk> features important tofirefighters. QuickBird imagery, by contrast,
 mk> depicts these details.

Interesting, Yukon's quad maps may be better than Alaska's but I don't
recall satellite images being used here to locate wildfires.

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+