The 2020 Western U.S. wildfire season was historic.
Both for the record 59 thousand wildfires that formed,
and the 10.1 million acres they scorched.
But, right on its heels was 2021
in which nearly 52,300 fires were recorded
with more than 7.8 million acres burned through December 24th
of that year.
Since launching in 2016, NOAA's most advanced geostationary satellites
are improving fire weather forecasts,
wildfire detection, and fire hazards tracking in near real-time.
With lives and property at stake, timely, high-quality data is critical
for firefighting efforts on the ground.
NOAA's GOES-17, operating in the GOES West orbit,
has shown its mettle, detecting and monitoring wildfires
and the hazardous smoke they emit.
Dan Lindsay: There's two instruments on the GOES series of satellites
which are helpful for wildfire detection and monitoring.
The first is the Advanced Baseline Imager, or the ABI.
Where we're able to detect hotspots from the thermal signatures
from the fires. And we're also able to detect the smoke.
And track the smoke with time in order to issue notifications
and warnings to the public.
The second instrument is called the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, or the GLM.
The GLM is important because oftentimes lightning
is the cause of the start of wildfires.
And so, forecasters can monitor the GLM to see where lightning has occurred.
To decide whether or not they think some lightning may have started a fire.
Narrator: But a new satellite called GOES-T is poised to replace GOES-17 in the GOES West position.
Once is it reaches orbit, GOES-T will be renamed GOES-18
and it will provide the same sophisticated technology
to track wildfires in the Western U.S., as well as detect lightning
that can ignite a wildfire in parched vegetation.
Heath Hockenberry: This current capability of GOES
is the fact that we can do rapid scans,
higher resolution with higher sensitivity.
And include things for the first time like lightning mapper,
and the ABI instruments.
I don't think we could imagine not having GOES capability. We absolutely need it.
Narrator: The National Interagency Fire Center is the nation's support center for wildland firefighting.
Sean Triplett: GOES in an eye in the sky.
It's giving us a hemispheric perspective with GOES-16 and 17.
Without having those two satellites up there,
constantly staring, constantly monitoring, constantly providing us with information
we really have a - just a big gap.
We would lose a lot of our capabilities to understand the environment.
To see the interaction of the fires with the atmosphere.
And see how the atmosphere is impacting the behaviour of the fires.
With GOES being able to look at the United States every five to ten minutes,
We're getting a much more
real-time appreciation for how fires are behaving.
Because of the ability of the GOES satellites to detect the heat from the fires.
Narrator: For more information about the launch of NOAA's GOES-T satellite, please visit the link (www.nesdis.noaa.gov).
NOAA Satellite and Information Service Logo
NASA Meatball
GOES-T Logo Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series