project-firewatch

Team Members: Dutch osbourne, Seth Wahle, Thuy Pham, Nick Hershey, Jason Cuneo

2017 NASA Space Apps Challenge Submission for the And YOU can Help Fight Fires! challenge.

See the Teams submission page for project updates!

Project-Firewatch integrates crowdsourced low-cost hardware fire monitors with Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) from the MODIS satellite to provide users with granularly accurate yet highly encompassing wildfire information that is easily accessible.

Access the Project-Firewatch Wildfire Map Here!

Access the Project-Firewatch API Here!

Demo sites may take a moment to load, the server is not powerful and the project still needs a lot of optimization work.

Table of Contents

Quick start

To set up a project-firewatch server, do the following.

git clone https://github.com/osteth/project-firewatch.git

Then install in locally editable (-e) mode and run the tests.

pip install -e .[test]
py.test

#tests aren't yet written and may fail.

Finally, give the command line program a try.

projectfirewatch --help

Command-line Interface

Project Firewatch Includes a Command-line Interface(CLI) to ensure easy use for non-technical personell as well as provide powerfull POSIX compliant features needed by experienced systems administrators and highly techincal persons.

Commands

Format:
projectfirewatch <commads><options><arguments>

projectfirewatch --help

projectfirewatch update projectfirewatch start

CLI Development Roadmap

[x] Build Basic CLI functionality.
[x] Write a function to automatically download MODIS Data.
[x] Write a function to re-format MODIS data into a usable JSON format.
[x] Combine download and format function and add to CLI.
[x] Improve Error resilience of update function.
[x] Integrate API with CLI.
[x] Integrate Map with CLI.
[ ] Write unit tests.
[ ] add a periodic auto-update of MODIS data to server function.
[ ] Add Daemon functionality to CLI.
[ ] make GUI extension??

API

MODIS Satellite Data Explanation

Attribute	Short Description	Long Description
Latitude	Latitude	Center of 1km fire pixel but not necessarily the actual location of the fire as one or more fires can be detected within the 1km pixel.
Longitude	Longitude	Center of 1km fire pixel but not necessarily the actual location of the fire as one or more fires can be detected within the 1km pixel.
Brightness	Brightness temperature 21(Kelvin)	Channel 21/22 brightness temperature of the fire pixel measured in Kelvin.
Scan	Along Scan pixel size	The algorithm produces 1km fire pixels but MODIS pixels get bigger toward the edge of the scan. Scan and track reflect actual pixel size.
Track	Along Track pixel size	The algorithm produces 1km fire pixels but MODIS pixels get bigger toward the edge of the scan. Scan and track reflect actual pixel size.
Acq_Date	Acquisition Date	Date of MODIS acquisition.
Acq_Time	Acquisition Time	Time of acquisition/overpass of the satellite (in UTC).
Satellite	Satellite	A = Aqua and T = Terra.
Confidence	Confidence (0-100%)	This value is based on a collection of intermediate algorithm quantities used in the detection process. It is intended to help users gauge the quality of individual hotspot/fire pixels. Confidence estimates range between 0 and 100% and are assigned one of the three fire classes (low-confidence fire, nominal-confidence fire, or high-confidence fire).
Version	Version (Collection and source)	Version identifies the collection (e.g. MODIS Collection 6) and source of data processing: Near Real-Time (NRT suffix added to collection) or Standard Processing (collection only). "6.0NRT" - Collection 6 NRT processing. "6.0" - Collection 6 Standard processing. Find out more on collections and on the differences between FIRMS data sourced from LANCE FIRMS and the University of Maryland.
Bright_T31	Brightness temperature 31 (Kelvin)	Channel 31 brightness temperature of the fire pixel measured in Kelvin.
FRP	Fire Radiative Power	Depicts the pixel-integrated fire radiative power in MW (megawatts).
DayNight	Day / Night	D = Daytime, N = Nighttime

Requests

requests	modifiers	Long Description
lat	plus minus	/api/?lat=43.6271&plus=10&minus=10 results filteres to a latitude plus and minus a given location.
lon	plus minus	/api/?lat=43.6271&plus=10&minus=10 results filteres to a longitude plus and minus a given location.
scan-min		/api/?scan-min=1
scan-max		/api/?scan-max=2
track-min		/api/?track-min=1
track-max		/api/?track-max=2
date	end	/api/?date=<julian begin date>&end=<julian end date>
time	until	/api/?time=0255&until=2250 (in UTC and military time).
onland		/api/?onland=True
confidence		/api/?confidence=65 (sets minimum confidence of results)
frp		/api/?frp=16 (sets minimum power of results in megawatts).
day		/api/?onland=True

API Development Roadmap

[x] Get basic FlaskAPI functionality working.
[x] Get pretty FlaskAPI markdown displayer working.
[x] Figure out how to get MODIS data and.
[x] Pull in MODIS data from flat file.
[x] Allow the user to dump all MODIS data at request.
[ ] collaborate with data source provider to better offer data to the community.
[ ] Write Unit Tests
[ ] Switch over to DB from the flat file.
[ ] Create a specification for MODIS data queries.
[ ] Expand API to allow for data filtering.
[ ] Create Specification for Sensor Data.
[ ] Expand API to allow writing of sensor data to DB.
[ ] Expand API to allow querying of sensor data.

Map

The map displays all known satellite discovered wildfires as well as the location and status of all active sensors.

Map Limitations

Due to technical Limitations, we are attempting to overcome the map can only display a maximum of 3240 points. To mitigate the effects of this limitation, we use GeoIP information to automatically locate the user and only plot fires within 25 degrees in all directions of the user. Additionally, a green marker is dropped were the program believes the user is located and the map automatically focuses on the user's location.

Map Features

Displays Semi-Realtime MODIS Satellite gathered wildfire Information.

Displays Status and information about custom fire sensors.

Satellite Information allows the user to get a broad picture of where the fire is located.

Project Firewatch located user's location and automatically focus the map for ease of use.

Reports your locations and helps you sign up for email notifications.

showing 25-degree bounding box size.

Map Development Roadmap

[x] Basic Map Functionality.
[x] Display a pin and circle.
[x] figure out radius expansion algorithm to accurately display MODIS satellite data.
[x] Display mock sensor data.
[x] Integrate with CLI.
[x] Get coordinates of user and autofocus map accordingly.
[ ] Get Map to display all MODIS fire Data.
[ ] Migrate from flat file to DB.
[ ] Display all live sensor data.
[ ] Allow the user to specify a focus location.
[ ] Attempt to pull cell phone GPS location and use it as users location.

Sensors

We put together prototype hardware sensors for the competition that anyone can build and contribute crowdsourced Fire data back to our database via the Project-Firewatch API.