Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission

Joshua M Johnston; Natasha Jackson; Colin McFayden; Linh Ngo Phong; Brian Lawrence; Didier Davignon; Martin J Wooster; Helena van Mierlo; Dan K Thompson; Alan S Cantin; Daniel Johnston; Lynn M Johnston; Meghan Sloane; Rebecca Ramos; Tim J Lynham

doi:10.3390/s20185081

Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission

Sensors (Basel). 2020 Sep 7;20(18):5081. doi: 10.3390/s20185081.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen St. E., Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A 2E5, Canada.
² Canadian Space Agency, 6767 Route de L'aéroport, Longueuil, QC J3Y 8Y9, Canada.
³ Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services, 95 Ghost Lake Rd, Dryden, ON P8N 2Z5, Canada.
⁴ Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Meteorological Centre Operations, 2121 route Transcanadienne, Dorval, QC H9P 1J3, Canada.
⁵ Leverhulme Center for Wildfires, Environment and Society, NERC National Centre for Earth Observation, Dept of Geography, King's College London, London WC2B 4BG, UK.

Abstract

In 2019 the Canadian Space Agency initiated development of a dedicated wildfire monitoring satellite (WildFireSat) mission. The intent of this mission is to support operational wildfire management, smoke and air quality forecasting, and wildfire carbon emissions reporting. In order to deliver the mission objectives, it was necessary to identify the technical and operational challenges which have prevented broad exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) in Canadian wildfire management and to address these challenges in the mission design. In this study we emphasize the first objective by documenting the results of wildfire management end-user engagement activities which were used to identify the key Fire Management Functionalities (FMFs) required for an Earth Observation wildfire monitoring system. These FMFs are then used to define the User Requirements for the Canadian Wildland Fire Monitoring System (CWFMS) which are refined here for the WildFireSat mission. The User Requirements are divided into Observational, Measurement, and Precision requirements and form the foundation for the design of the WildFireSat mission (currently in Phase-A, summer 2020).

Keywords: air quality; carbon emissions; earth observation; forest fire; remote sensing; satellite design; user requirements; wildfire; wildfire detection; wildfire management; wildfire monitoring; wildland fire.