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The state of Oregon’s fire fighters have begun using visual information coming straight from a NASA satellite and into their computer screens, helping them to analyze the fire which they must handle in real time and to differentiate places where the fire is burning, as well as with what force on a color scale: Yellow means the place is hot and as the fire gets closer to orange, so is the fire in that area at higher temperature. With analysis of the situations the fire fighting team on the field can spread its forces more efficiently and plan a better strategy for putting out the fire.
The NASA satellite is just one of many technological capabilities that fire and rescue teams have in stock that help direct them to better cope with the fire in an optimal way thus extinguishing it in as short time as possible. The Oregon fire fighters technological toolbox is priceless, since in a place where fires are an everyday occurrence in the months of summer, more and better information means better handling with the fire. Another Hi-Tech ability is identifying spots in the natural forest that have been hit by lightening using a special tracking software. The software can’t identify in which of these places a fire has been starting, but it can give the authorities information regarding spots that must be watch closely. Surveillance cameras can also be of great use for the fire fighters, being set up in several high ground key points to transfer valuable visual information on what’s happening between the trees. A forth technological mean is infra-red devices that are operated by teams on field scanning the places known to be problematic by foot. The special sensors reveal to the teams real time heat marks that are invisible to the naked eye and their ability can be mostly useful in the dark hours.
