Members of the Department of Geography have been pioneers in the satellite detection of fires and in seeking ways to ensure information is delivered in a timely fashion ready for immediate use.  Leading the latter effort are Diane Davies and Chris Justice along with team members Minnie Wong and Shriram Ilavajhala in the Fire Information for Resource Management System or FIRMS (http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/default.asp).

FIRMS integrates remote sensing and GIS technologies to deliver MODIS fire data to natural resource managers around the world with a specific focus on protected areas.  In particular FIRMS provides MODIS hotspot / fire products in easy to use formats.

The Department congratulates the FIRMS Team for the receipt of this message of appreciation from the United States Northern Command.

From: Chris M Mayfield, NORTHCOM COP/GIS Manager

FIRMS Team,

From about noon of October 22nd, 2007 and continually throughout the Southern California fires disaster, the capability and use of the Web Fire Mapper WMS and the Active Fire Data shapefiles have been INSTRUMENTAL to the successful fire planning and disaster situational awareness of United States Northern Command via SAGE, our Situational Awareness Geospatial Enterprise, and our connection to DHS’s iCAV, Integrated Common Analytical Viewer. You have our unreserved thanks and appreciation for providing such a valuable resource to the GIS community at large during these critical times.

As you may have been aware, national assets for fire data GIS were not always available initially and a concerted effort that brought many manual process into our mission execution were hindering the efficiency of sharing situational awareness throughout the DoD and DHS effort. FIRMS automated this process and saved untold man hours and allowed us to effectively fight the mission.

Long time NASA MODIS users, we were unaware of the FIRMS resource until that mid morning, but now, I can assure you that FIRMS is very much a part of the NORTHCOM Team in protecting the homeland.

Again, our many thanks and a very big BRAVO ZULU to all of you on the FIRMS Team.

Very Respectfully,

Chris Mayfield