Thermal Observations of Alaskan Duff Smoldering Sites, 2004

The Fire Chemistry group is interested in the remote sensing and prediction of emissions from wildland fires. During the 2004 Alaska smoke and emissions sampling campaign a MikroScan 7200 thermal imaging camera manufactured by Mikron was utilized to correlate emissions data from smoldering, with radiant energy emitted as heat. The Mikron imager has a spectral band of 8-14µm and can detect temperatures ranging from -40ºC to 2000ºC.

The Mikron imager was set up above selected smoldering sample sites, and images were taken of the sites before and after the smoldering emissions measurements. Figure 1 shows an example of the IR images taken at the smoldering sites at the King’s Creek fire near Tok, Alaska. While the primary focus of the camera study was during the smoldering stage, the burn at King’s Creek was set up to gather emissions data from both the flaming and smoldering stages using FASS towers. The Mikron camera took data during the flaming stage from 580 feet away as the flaming front moved through the area where the towers were located (Figure 2).

In the future the Mikron camera will be used along side a TVS-8500 thermal imaging system with a spectral band of 3.5-5.1µm, and coordinated with airplane over-flights and spaceborne observations with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) passes to correlate data between multiple remote sensing platforms.

Figure 1: Mikron IR Camera image of smoldering ground at the King’s Creek site.

Figure 2: Mikron IR Camera image of flaming front approaching the two FASS towers at King’s Creek. Temperatures on scale reflect temperatures sensed by the camera which does not account for atmospheric effects and are therefore lower than actual site temperatures. scale reflect temperatures sensed by the camera which does not account for atmospheric effects and are therefore lower than actual site temperatures.

Ground-Based Thermal Observations of the Black Mountain 2 Fire in West-Central Montana, 2003

Remote sensing specialists from the Fire Chemistry Project stationed the TVS-8500 thermal imaging system at the Black Mountain 2 Fire in August of 2003. Products generated from the imaging system include time sequences of high-oblique thermal images (Video 1). These images were georegistered allowing the perimeters of the fire to be generated (Video 2). Ongoing experiments at the Fire Lab are investigating small-scale relationships between Fire Radiative Energy (FRE), fuel consumption rate, and smoke source strength (Freeborn et al. 2004).

Video 1 - Time sequence of high-oblique thermal images

Video 2 - Georegistered images