Fire Radiative Power Measurements from the NOAA Met Twin Otter during FIREX-AQ

Abstract:

The Nighttime Fire Observations Experiment (NightFOX) project funded by the NOAA UAS Program Office involved the design, construction, calibration, evaluation, and deployment of two separate, light-weight instrument packages for investigation of wildfires using a small, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) platform. One of the instrument packages comprises a suite of remote sensing instruments at SWIR, MWIR and thermal IR wavelengths that are used to map fire extent and observe fire radiative properties. The NightFOX Remote Sensing payload instrument suite was integrated onto the NOAA Met Twin Otter research aircraft with the NOAA CSL airborne scanning Doppler lidar for deployment during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) project. Overall, the NightFOX RS instruments performed as designed during the mission, although the platform speed and altitude differed substantially from those of the intended sUAS operational parameters. Payload design, performance, fire maps and fire radiative power (expressed as fire temperature) results from FIREX-AQ flights over western wildfires will be presented.