2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Figure 12
The NASA Ikhana UAV is shown
with the AMS-Wildfire sensor pod
located under the wing during
mission operations in early FY2008.
The pod can be configured for
other instrumentation and mission
configurations.
Figure 11
The NASA Ikhana UAS, containing the
AMS-Wildfire sensor system flew three
primary emergency support missions over
the 2008 Northern California firestorm
areas. This map displays the location and
flight tracks of those missions.
targets, such as those found in wildfire events.
The AMS instrument demonstrated realtime
delivery of fire imagery and on-board,
algorithm-processed, hot-target detection
data, as well as burn area assessment data to
fire management teams.
NASA was called into service in late June
2008 through requests originating from the
California Governor’s Office of Emergency
Services, CalFire, and FEMA, to support
the large number of wildfires burning in
Northern California. The Northern California
wildfires started in late June, spawned by
several hundred lightning strikes in the dry
timber forested lands primarily surrounding
the northern end of the California Central
Valley. Several thousand fires grew together
into larger complexes, necessitating the need
for airborne reconnaissance over large tracts
of land. The NASA missions were planned
and flown over those fire complexes with
real-time data derived from the sensor,
distributed to the Multi-Agency Coordination
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