How NASA Ames Research Center is helping fire management agencies predict wildfires

Wildland fire management agencies are getting help from NASA when it comes to predicting and putting out wildfires.

"This is the data and tools we've been developing for tracking active fire changes," said Taejin Park, a research scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center.

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Ames is one of 10 NASA field centers in the country and is located in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Research and data being developed here are helping improve how communities respond to wildfires, especially during this active fire season.

The Thompson Fire in Butte County has burned more than 3,000 acres and is only 7% contained as of Wednesday night.

"We use all the satellites that we launch to create improved images, so pictures of the earth that tell us exactly when a fire has started, how hot it is, what it might be burning so what kinds of trees, grasses, how close it is to communities and then we share that information with emergency responders," said Jessica McCarty, a NASA Ames scientist.

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The data is shared in near real-time with those emergency responders. It's also available to the public.

"Within five or 10 minutes we can know where the fire starts and then how the fire propagates," said Park.

"We're constantly tracking fuel conditions, we're creating new vegetation maps," said McCarty.

NASA's satellite imagery is able to show how the number of extreme fire weather days has increased over time.

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"California has more, longer period of extreme fire weather," said Park.

NASA's scientists can't tell us exactly when the next big wildfire will occur.

"The real thing is that predicting a fire season in California is actually about predicting human behavior and that's because 9 out of 10 fires are caused by humans. So we can tell you how dry the landscape is and how likely a fire is to start if there was an ignition. What NASA can't do is predict if humans are actually going to be out there starting the fires," said McCarty.

Which is why wildfire prevention can't be overlooked in helping mitigate wildfire risks.