Enhancement of a fire-detection algorithm by eliminating solar contamination effects and atmospheric path radiance: application to MODIS data

Abstract

Traditional fire-detection algorithms with either fixed or contextual thresholds mainly rely on the temperature contrast between a fire pixel and its surrounding pixels in the mid-infrared (MIR) and thermal-infrared (TIR) bands. Solar contamination and thermal atmospheric path radiance in the MIR band can weaken the contrast between the high- and low-temperature objects and undermine the capability of detecting fires during daytime. The degree of solar contamination in the MIR band depends on variable surface albedo, solar zenith angle and atmospheric conditions. A method is proposed to eliminate the solar radiation and thermal path radiance received by the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor in the MIR band. The modified MIR brightness temperature is incorporated into the existing fire-detection algorithm (referred to as ‘MOD14’) after re-tuning the daytime thresholds. The performance of the revised algorithm (referred to as ‘MOD-MOD’) was tested using coincident data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard the Terra satellite and visual inspection of large quantities of MODIS imageries. Moderate improvements are achieved in the detection rate while retaining low commission errors. Improvement of the detection by MOD-MOD depends on land-cover type. The majority of the false detections occur over deforested area.