Conference 7.286::space

722.0. "NASA & Industry to develop remote sensing firefighting aid" by PRAGMA::GRIFFIN (Dave Griffin) Thu Apr 18 1991 19:48

4/18/91: NASA & INDUSTRY TO DEVELOP REMOTE SENSING FIREFIGHTING AID

RELEASE:  91-56


        NASA's Ames Research Center and Terra-Mar Resource Information
Services, Inc., both of Mountain View, Calif., will jointly develop
a system to allow firefighters to merge elevation and vegetation
data with live pictures of forest fires to enable the firefighters
to quickly "see" through a smoky forest fire and plan their
strategy.

        The data will be available to firefighters in a matter of
minutes, compared with current systems which take 6 to 12 hours to
obtain similar data.  The disaster assessment system also could be
used during floods, earthquakes, oil spills and similar events.

        The system will be used to retrieve maps containing information
about location, land cover, roads and water sources from distant
sites and to merge this data with up-to-the-minute aerial images of
the fire area.  The digital image of the fire will be transmitted
from an airplane flying over the fire to a mobile ground station
near the fire lines.

        The system will give firefighters a picture of the fire
intensity and borders, overlaid with drawings of roads, water
sources and map coordinates.  If needed, elevation data will be
displayed in images that appear three dimensional to model the
fire's spread.

        The 3-year project calls for NASA to expand existing remote
sensing technology and for Terra-Mar to develop portable computer
work stations and advanced software for the system.

        The $600,000 project is funded by NASA's Office of Commercial
Programs, Washington, D.C., under the Earth Observations
Commercialization Applications Program (EOCAP), based on a proposal
submitted by Ames and Terra-Mar.

        The ultimate goal of the effort is to develop, test and market
a commercial remote sensing system for real-time assessment and
management of natural disasters.  EOCAP promotes partnerships
between government, industry, educational institutions and non-
profit organizations to increase commercial applications of NASA-
developed remote sensing technology.

        The agreement also funds development of data bases on
California's vegetation, roads and water sources by the State of
California's Teale Data Center.  The U.S. Forest Service Forest Fire
Laboratory will coordinate system testing and use during actual
fires.  Hewlett-Packard, Ft. Collins, Colo.; VITec, Inc., Plano,
Texas; and ESL, Sunnyvale, Calif., a subsidiary of TRW, will provide
hardware and software support to the project.