Press Release


  This press release is issued by NASDA.

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Publication of Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires

May 30, 2003 (JST)

National Space Development Agency of Japan
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research
Council Secretariat at Tsukuba Office
Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute

The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and one of the organs of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council Secretariat at Tsukuba Office (MAFFIN) have decided to publicize the "Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires" on the Internet. This System is a result of the joint collaboration under the agreement on joint research cooperation between the two organizations for 2002-2003.
The Trial System focuses on Thailand and its neighboring areas which are subject to frequent forest fires in the South-East Asia, and aims to evaluate the effectiveness of detecting fire situation by superimposing on the map several information on forest fires (fire criticality, location) obtained from different satellite data of NOAA and "Fuyo-1" (JERS-1) and so on.
Up to now, the satellite monitoring system developed by the Forestry and Forest Product Research Institute has been made public. The new system, based on the old one, consists of the Research Institute's fire criticality data, MAFFIN's improved database, and NASDA's Internet and "standardization" technology for GIS.
This makes it possible to understand fire situation by superimposing in real time on the map relevant respective fire information and geographic information (coastline, national border, streets, rivers, etc.) It is very useful, not only to provide information to those areas like Thailand which need prompt understanding of the situation covering from outbreak of fire to its extinction, but also to apply its expanded use to different data or other areas, since the system incorporates the standardization technology.
Everyone can superimpose on the same map fire information and geographic information on Thailand and its neighboring areas obtained by more than one satellites data from the following website, or you may have such data free of charge:
http://fire.hq.nasda.go.jp/fms/index.php
The data up to March 2002 has been available and will be increased in volume in the future. Moreover, consideration is given to the incorporation of the data obtained by the currently operating satellites like "Midori II" (ADEOS-II) into this System, the application of this System not merely to forest fires, but also to other environment and disaster areas such as monitoring flood and drought, and furthermore to cooperative arrangements with other relevant organizations due to employing its standardization technology.

Operation of Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires and Obtaining Data

A brief introduction is described on this System and the website as follows:

1. Outline of the Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires

Under the joint research cooperative agreement between NASDA and MAFFIN's Tsukuba Office, this System is to publicize, on the standard web site through Internet using the standardized technology, the date especially dedicated to forest fire from more than one satellite. This data is once stored in the database before retrieval for publication and the standardized technology is called Open GIS for both the Internet and GIS.

Contents of Forest Fires
Satellite (Sensor)Data
NOAA (AVHRR) Fire Criticality, Fire Location
DMSP (OLS) Fire Location
JERS-1 (SAR) Thailand and its Surroundings Mosaic Data (understanding of surface situations)
Geographic Information (coastlines, national border, provincial border, streets and rivers)
Period of Data Storage
Fire Criticality (every 10 days), Fire Location (everyday): Thailand and its Surroundings Mosaic Data from January 1, 2001 to March 2002 (to be added):
Data of January and February 1997 fabricated into a mosaic picture
Data Coverage Area
North Latitude 4.85 degrees through 21.15 degrees
East Longitude 96.95 degrees through 106 degrees

2. Outline of the Homepage of the Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires

The Homepage makes it possible to retrieve the data obtained by different satellites, to superimpose it and to download it. A user can designate a date on the homepage and retrieve the data.
Any downloaded image and data are free of charge.

The following are how to use the Homepage:

  1. Access to the Trial System for Monitoring Forest Fires from the web browser, display the updated superimposed fire criticality data and fire location data by designating a date, and confirm the existence of a fire or the degree of fire situation. Each data can be designated from the layer box.
  2. Widen the interested area, superimpose the data of JERS-SAR and the geographic data (national border, streets, rivers, etc), and confirm the geographical location and spot of fires.
  3. In order to detect more accurate fire location, it is possible to see latitude and longitude information on fire location at a different window. It is also possible to retrieve a designated-date data to check up the past fire cases.
  4. In case of recording the displayed data, it is possible to store it in a JPEG format.
    In addition, latitude and longitude information on fire location can be storable in a text file format.