Measuring fire spread rates from repeat pass airborne thermal infrared imagery

Image Similarity Metrics Suitable for Infrared Video Stabilization during Active Wildfire Monitoring: A Comparative Analysis

“…These results provide a sound basis for image alignment measurement and open the door to further developments in image registration, motion estimation and video stabilization for aerial monitoring of active wildland fires.Similarly, airborne imaging systems are being increasingly employed to gain detailed insight into fire behavior variables such as fire rate of spread, fire line intensity and fire radiative power [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft further simplify sensor deployment while significantly reducing operation costs and risk [23][24][25].Although a few successful experiences have been reported that use airborne monitoring systems in large-scale wildfires [17,26], the majority of developments in fire detection and monitoring occur via sensing prescribed fires, which are often restricted in areal extent as well as fire line radiative intensity [27]. In these cases, the remote sensor is usually placed in a fixed position or a hovering aircraft and it is deployed to collect high spatial resolution images with a moderate temporal resolution for the full duration of flaming combustion [28][29][30].…”

“…Nevertheless, turbulence from the fire often results in significant roll, pitch and yaw variations that are hard to cancel with mechanical stabilization systems only. Given camera motion during the acquisition, image registration and rectification are required before spatial inference can be completed (for example, to measure fire residence time per pixel or rate of spread).Within sensor types suitable for wildfire monitoring, optical cameras working in the thermal infrared (TIR) range are widely applied to characterize active fire behavior due to their high availability and versatility [11,15,17,31,32]. Airborne TIR cameras allow measuring fire geometry and radiated energy with high spatial and moderate temporal resolution even in the presence of smoke.…”

“…Similarly, airborne imaging systems are being increasingly employed to gain detailed insight into fire behavior variables such as fire rate of spread, fire line intensity and fire radiative power [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft further simplify sensor deployment while significantly reducing operation costs and risk [23][24][25].…”

“…Although a few successful experiences have been reported that use airborne monitoring systems in large-scale wildfires [17,26], the majority of developments in fire detection and monitoring occur via sensing prescribed fires, which are often restricted in areal extent as well as fire line radiative intensity [27]. In these cases, the remote sensor is usually placed in a fixed position or a hovering aircraft and it is deployed to collect high spatial resolution images with a moderate temporal resolution for the full duration of flaming combustion [28][29][30].…”

“…Within sensor types suitable for wildfire monitoring, optical cameras working in the thermal infrared (TIR) range are widely applied to characterize active fire behavior due to their high availability and versatility [11,15,17,31,32]. Airborne TIR cameras allow measuring fire geometry and radiated energy with high spatial and moderate temporal resolution even in the presence of smoke.…”