Application of Himawari-8 Data in Monitoring Forest Fire

DU Pin, LIU Mingxu, XU Tingting, SONG Yu†

State Joint Key Lab of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, Peking University, Beijing 100871; † Corresponding authors, E-mail: songyu@pku.edu.cn

Abstract Taking the forest fire in Sumatra, Indonesia on October 15, 2015 as an example, method to extract forest fire hotspots using the new-generation geostationary satellite―himawari-8 data was explored via clear sky analysis, potential fire pixel identification, sunglint test and background analysis. Within the temporal and spatial range of this study, 10109 Himawari-8 hotspots were extracted in all (142 significant instants), and the maximum number of hotspots for a single moment was 267 (03:40LT). Through quantitative comparison of time-space distributions, it was found that compared with MODIS hotspots, hotspots derived from Himawari-8 data were of smaller amount and more dispersed spatial distribution. However, two kinds of hotspots were very similar in overall spatial distribution. The characteristics of spatial distribution and quantity of Himawari-8 hotspots were consistent with fire information reflected by the true-color image of Himawari-8. In general, extracted Himawari-8 hotspots could well reflect the information of forest fire and provide useful information in forest fire mornitoring. Key words Himawari-8; forest fire; hotspot detection