Operational perspective of remote sensing-based forest fire danger forecasting systems

Forest fire is a natural phenomenon in many ecosystems across the world. One of the most important components of forest fire management is the forecasting of fire danger conditions. Here, our aim was to critically analyse the following issues, (i) current operational forest fire danger forecasting systems and their limitations; (ii) remote sensing-based fire danger monitoring systems and usefulness in operational perspective; (iii) remote sensing-based fire danger forecasting systems and their functional implications; and (iv) synergy between operational forecasting systems and remote sensing-based methods. In general, the operational systems use point-based measurements of meteorological variables (e.g., temperature, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, precipitations, cloudiness, solar radiation, etc.) and generate danger maps upon employing interpolation techniques. Theoretically, it is possible to overcome the uncertainty associated with the interpolation techniques by using remote sensing data. During the last several decades, efforts were given to develop fire danger condition systems, which could be broadly classified into two major groups: fire danger monitoring and forecasting systems. Most of the monitoring systems focused on determining the danger during and/or after the period of image acquisition. A limited number of studies were conducted to forecast fire danger conditions, which could be adaptable. Synergy between the operational systems and remote sensing-based methods were investigated in the past but too much complex in nature. Thus, the elaborated understanding about these developments would be worthwhile to advance research in the area of fire danger in the context of making them operational. (c) 2014 International Society for Photogrammetiy and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS) Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.