The astronomical costs of wildfires to our nation impact our environment, economy, and our very lives

According to a summary of suppression costs compiled by the national interagency fire center (nifc) for 2017 alone, there were more than 71,000 wildfires, impacting over 10 million acres, and resulting in almost 3 billion dollars in expenditures across all agencies. On a more personal note, between 1990 and 2015, an average of 17 firefighter lives were lost during fire suppression efforts; twenty-one percent of those deaths were due to entrapment. Further, according to a report from wildfire today, primary concerns from the firefighting community related to fatalities include a lack of tactical knowledge of escape routes and safety zones (the black), and real-time data for decision makers. Author (and veteran firefighter) bill gabbert believes operationally relevant, real-time data and technologies for decision makers and ground supervisors are keys to effective change:utilize existing technology that will enable division supervisors, operations section chiefs, and safety officers to know in real time, 1) where the fire is, and 2) where the firefighters are...last month TOM harbour told me that he was very concerned that, for example, someone in washington would be accessing the data from thousands of miles away and order that a firefighter move 20 feet to the left. That can be managed. Making the information available to supervisors on the ground can save lives. The goal of the phase II effort is to develop to prototype and demonstrate the processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) solution proposed during phase i. The solution is comprised of a fixed wing small unmanned aerial system (suas), an asset tracking system (ATS), an suas mounted optical and infrared video sensor, a ground control station (GCS), and a software environment for receipt, storage, visualization and fusion of relevant imagery, maps, ATS data, and geospatial data. The purpose of the system is to enhance real-time situational awareness, maximize resource allocation, and reduce risk to firefighters by injecting operationally relevant data into the common operating picture (COP) of incident leadership while firefighters are actively engaging forest wildfires. The overall PED architecture is scalable, and can be replicated multiple times, so that multiple PED systems can be deployed to support separate events or interconnected to simultaneously manage one large-scale event. The goals of the project will be accomplished by developing a demonstration worthy prototype for commercialization and by working with organizations within the wildfire management community to develop doctrines for system employment. Based upon requirements set forth by the community during phase i skyward will also facilitate efforts between the wildfire management community and the federal aviation administration (FAA) to create appropriate rules and means supporting the use of suas to combat wildfires. If successful this system will lay a new foundation for operationalizing geospatial and image-based data by applying cutting-edge technologies and paradigm breaking methodologies to the forest wildfire management mission.