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You're currently being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious -- is continuous IR monitoring from the sky an effective way to detect wildfires earlier? Or are sm

You're currently being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious -- is continuous IR monitoring from the sky an effective way to detect wildfires earlier? Or are small fires indistinguishable from a million other hot objects, until the point where they get large enough to detect reliably, it's already obvious to everyone on the ground from the smoke?

0xffff2 2y ago
Yes, it is effective. We have several NASA/NOAA satellites with IR instruments on them that are used for fire detection. These are obviously much more useful for detecting fires that start in very rural areas under moderate conditions. The current crop of fires in LA are all very close to populated areas and spread fast, so satellite mapping wasn't of any use for detection. Also, California in particular has a really great fleet of IR mapping planes that give firefighters and the public much more detailed fire information than the satellite coverage, but when I lived in Oregon where they don't have a similar system, the satellite coverage was often the most up to date information on fire perimeters.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Seems like it would be logistically difficult to be able to drop a significant amount of water anywhere in, say, 15 minutes. With dry conditions and high winds, that is an extremely slow response to an uncontrolled fire...
atonse 2y ago
I'm not so sure. In nVidia's keynote, they had an example of small smoke plumes identified as potential fires. If you had a drone hovering over a particular city to monitor fires, it could potentially be an early warning system, no? And to others that said that the winds are dangerous, do quadcopter drones (which tend to be more stable anyway) have algorithms to account for that?
- trhway 2y ago
  >And to others that said that the winds are dangerous, do quadcopter drones (which tend to be more stable anyway) have algorithms to account for that? while they have such algorithms, a quadcopter wouldn't able to achieve needed stability in 100mph wind. A heavy plane would do much better. The current issue is that all those existing water-carrying planes have to go low over fire - thus wind is a problem - as they can't dive-bomb and can't be retrofitted for that. It is just different types of planes. A dive-bomber would do much better - would deliver the water precisely from a bit higher altitude and from a much more stable, even in the strong wind, trajectory. An unmannend dive-bomber is even easier, can go for even better trajectories.
bsder 2y ago
It could be for fires on normal weather days. The problem is that with these winds and humidity small fires become huge fires before anybody can react. Once they are huge fires, detection isn't the problem.

0xffff2 2y ago

Yes, it is effective. We have several NASA/NOAA satellites with IR instruments on them that are used for fire detection. These are obviously much more useful for detecting fires that start in very rural areas under moderate conditions. The current crop of fires in LA are all very close to populated areas and spread fast, so satellite mapping wasn't of any use for detection. Also, California in particular has a really great fleet of IR mapping planes that give firefighters and the public much more detailed fire information than the satellite coverage, but when I lived in Oregon where they don't have a similar system, the satellite coverage was often the most up to date information on fire perimeters.

maxerickson 2y ago
Seems like it would be logistically difficult to be able to drop a significant amount of water anywhere in, say, 15 minutes. With dry conditions and high winds, that is an extremely slow response to an uncontrolled fire...

atonse 2y ago

I'm not so sure. In nVidia's keynote, they had an example of small smoke plumes identified as potential fires. If you had a drone hovering over a particular city to monitor fires, it could potentially be an early warning system, no? And to others that said that the winds are dangerous, do quadcopter drones (which tend to be more stable anyway) have algorithms to account for that?

trhway 2y ago
>And to others that said that the winds are dangerous, do quadcopter drones (which tend to be more stable anyway) have algorithms to account for that? while they have such algorithms, a quadcopter wouldn't able to achieve needed stability in 100mph wind. A heavy plane would do much better. The current issue is that all those existing water-carrying planes have to go low over fire - thus wind is a problem - as they can't dive-bomb and can't be retrofitted for that. It is just different types of planes. A dive-bomber would do much better - would deliver the water precisely from a bit higher altitude and from a much more stable, even in the strong wind, trajectory. An unmannend dive-bomber is even easier, can go for even better trajectories.

bsder 2y ago

It could be for fires on normal weather days. The problem is that with these winds and humidity small fires become huge fires before anybody can react. Once they are huge fires, detection isn't the problem.