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Field: So when we look at a global picture of fire, you can see fire everywhere

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on all continents. And at some level they're similar

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in that it's vegetation that's burning, but the drivers of those can be

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very different. In North America, for example, 

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fires can be started by lightning, by natural factors, by

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people, often accidentally, and the explosive fires

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there that we see on TV are driven by the variability

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in the weather, so high winds at the surface for example. In other

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areas, in South America for example, wind-driven fires are less

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of an issue. It's primarily related to the land use. So

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using fire for land clearing and land preparation.

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In those cases, it's getting an accurate picture of the overall dryness

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of that area.
VO: NASA has a long history of monitoring fire

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and smoke using different satellites in the Earth Observing System. Data from the

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Global Precipitation Measurement mission, or GPM, and other satellites and

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models gives us information on rainfall, temperature and land cover, which

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in turn, create a more complete picture of a vegetation fire starting and spreading.

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That's the thinking behind the Global Fire Weather Database, the first

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globally consistent fire weather dataset for fire researchers and managers.

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Field: So the Global Fire Weather Database is designed to get at the 

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underlying conditions that drive those fires. Really focused

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on the meteorological aspect and to be used alongside some

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of the other risk factors. As we learn how to make use of the

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satellite data in driving these calculations, from GPM in particular,

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that can translate into actual operational products used, for example,

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by the meteorological services in different countries

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for their localized fire weather products.

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A good example is in Indonesia, which has a very serious fire problem.

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It's all related to land clearing, and one issue there

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is that it's happening in very remote regions. And in those places

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there's very little data. It's not a data-rich environment, and so you're limited

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by the accuracy of the picture you can get.

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So in that case, when we use calculations based on GPM data,

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it fills in all of those gaps. And we've seen that over

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the past couple of years for some of its severe fire episodes

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that we get a much better picture of where the dry regions are compared

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to where it's very rainy. And those can be very close together

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because of how localized rainfall can be in the tropics.

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VO: Far away from the tropics, the Global Fire Weather Database is used

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to assess risk in Canada. In 2017, abnormally

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hot and dry weather, combined with stressed forests, led to severe

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fires throughout British Columbia. Through July and August, stretches of high

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fire risk in the interior led to periods of extreme fire behavior

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and the highest annual recorded burned area for the province.

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The impact from these fires isn't just on the ground. Plumes of smoke

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can travel and pollute the air beyond the source.
Field: In some cases we

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can see smoke plumes from Northern Canada transported over the

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Atlantic and arriving in Europe. In the most extreme cases, when

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those fires are really hot, the smoke from those fires can be

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ejected directly into the lower stratosphere.

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It's like a small volcano. And then can persist in

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the lower stratosphere for months.
VO: Fire weather data based on satellites like

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GPM continue to help researchers understand the conditions under which those extreme

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fire events occur and how things may change over time.

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