The MODIS rapid response project

The Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on board the Terra satellite offers an unprecedented combination of daily spatial coverage, spatial resolution, and spectral characteristics. These capabilities make MODIS ideal to observe a variety of rapid events: active fires, floods, smoke transport, dust storms, severe storms, iceberg calving, and volcanic eruptions. A new processing system has been developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to provide a rapid response to those events, with initial emphasis on active fire detection and 250-m resolution imagery. MODIS data of most of the Earth's land surface is processed within a few hours of data acquisition. Collaboration between NASA, the University of Maryland and the USDA Forest Service has been developed to provide fire information derived from MODIS to the fire managers. Active fire locations in the conterminous United States are produced by the MODIS Rapid Response System and communicated to the Forest Service within a few minutes of production. These active fire locations are used to generate regional fire maps, updated daily and provided to the fire managers to help them allocate adequate resources to firefighters. Active fire locations are also distributed to the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) user community through a Web interface integrating MODIS active fire locations and geographic information system datasets.