Abstract
The objective is to evaluate procedures for direct measurement of fire spread rates (FSRs) based on archived repeat pass airborne thermal infrared (ATIR) imagery and to identify requirements for more refined measurements of FSR and environmental factors that influence FSR. Flaming front positions are delineated on sequential FireMapper ATIR images captured at relatively short repeat intervals enabling fire spread vectors and units to also be delineated. This approach provides the only means for estimating FSR for wildfires at spatial scales in the order of 101–103 m and timescales from 102 to 105 s. Magnitudes of estimated FSR from the time sequential ATIR approach for the 2002 Williams fire in southern California tested here are reasonable, given the fire conditions are within the range of rates reported in the literature for wildland fires in Mediterranean shrublands.
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