NASA’s New Instrument ‘C-FIRST’ to Understand California Wildfires

NewzVille Science Desk

The California Wildfire devastated local habitats and communities in January this year. In an effort to better understand wildfire behavior, NASA scientists and engineers tried to learn from the events by testing new technology.

The new instrument, c-FIRST (Compact Fire Infrared Radiance Spectral Tracker), was tested when NASA’s B200 King Air aircraft flew over the wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, California.

Based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, the aircraft used the c-FIRST instrument to observe the impacts of the fires in near real-time. Due to its small size and ability to efficiently simulate a satellite-based mission, the B200 King Air is uniquely suited for testing c-FIRST.

c-FIRST is managed and operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. It gathers thermal infrared images in high-resolution and other data about the terrain to study the impacts of wildfires on ecology. In a single observation, c-FIRST can capture the full temperature range across a wide area of wildland fires – as well as the cool, unburned background – potentially increasing both the quantity and quality of science data produced.

Sarath Gunapala, principal investigator for c-FIRST at NASA JPL said, “Currently, no instrument is able to cover the entire range of attributes for fires present in the Earth system, this leads to gaps in our understanding of how many fires occur, and of crucial characteristics like size and temperature.”

For decades, the quality of infrared images has struggled to convey the nuances of high-temperature surfaces above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (550 degrees Celsius). Blurry resolution and light saturation of infrared images has inhibited scientists’ understanding of an extremely hot terrain, and thereby also inhibited wildfire research. Historically, images of extremely hot targets often lacked the detail scientists need to understand the range of a fire’s impacts on an ecosystem.

To address the issue, NASA’s c-FIRST instrument, combining state-of-the-art imaging technology with a compact and efficient design. When c-FIRST was airborne, scientists could detect smoldering fires more accurately and quickly, while also gathering important information on active fires in near real-time.

“These smoldering fires can flame up if the wind picks up again,” said Gunapala. “Therefore, the c-FIRST data set could provide very important information for firefighting agencies to fight fires more effectively.”

For instance, c-FIRST data can help scientists estimate the likelihood of a fire spreading in a certain landscape, allowing officials to more effectively monitor smoldering fires and track how fires evolve. Furthermore, c-FIRST can collect detailed data that can enable scientists to understand how an ecosystem may recover from fire events.

By first testing the instrument onboard the B200 King Air, the c-FIRST team can evaluate its readiness for future satellite missions investigating wildfires.

On a changing planet where wildfires are increasingly common, instruments like c-FIRST could provide data that can aid firefighting agencies to fight fires more effectively, and to understand the ecosystemic impacts of extreme weather events.