Development of fast dissemination of early warning information on wild fires using APAN network

Haruhiro Fujita¹, Lukman T. Aziz², Katsuo Nishibara^3
1Shikoku National Agricultural Research Institute, 1-3-1, Senyu, Zentsuji, Kagawa, Japan.
Tel. : +81-8 77-63 81 01, Fax: +81-8 77-63 16 83,
E-mail: fujitah@skk.affrc.go.jp
²Institute of Technology, Bandung, Japan. E-mail: lukmanaz@indo.net.id
³Shikoku National Agricultural Research Institute, 1-3-1, Senyu, Zentsuji, Kagawa, Japan.
E-mail: nishibar@skk.affrc.go.jp

Abstract:
Wild fires in the Asia Pacific region are threatening the regional security, environment, health and foods, because of the devastating impacts of combustion to local flora and fauna, and the related emission of carbon dioxide, smoke and haze.

As widely recognised, the NOAA AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) and DMSP OLS (Operational Linescan System) are efficient satellite monitoring methods for fires.

The accuracy of the NOAA AVHRR contextural method was tested during September to November 1997. Approximately 86% of detected fire locations were matched with the burnt areas on SPOT imagery and with the "ground truth" using GPS.

The Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) is one of the most promising network backbones for the existing disaster monitoring and control systems. Under the APAN, the APBionet for agricultural, forestry and fisheries research in the region, has been operational since 1 May 1998. It has a logical network resources allocation of 500 kbps, and is currently being tested for the dissemination of the satellite-borne data.

The Post Partners Project is currently undertaking telecommunicational experiments using the satellite based Pan Pacific Telecommunication System with USM (Malaysia), KMITL (Thailand) and ITB (Indonesia). The fire data transmission is being proposed as a part of the project’s activities.

A working group of the Wild Fire Network Consortium within the APAN has been established in April 1998 and is applying the above advanced networks. The consortium aims at research and technological development for non-profit and non-political purposes through a real-time sharing of fire data among members.