PAYNE INSTITUTE COMMENTARY SERIES: COMMENTARY

By Christopher D. Elvidge, Mikhail Zhizhin, and Morgan Bazilian

January 9, 2025

The Payne Institute’s Earth Observation Group conducts world class satellite data analysis and insights. This Commentary considers the deadly fires in and around Los Angeles, USA. The situation is rapidly evolving, of course. What we display here is an important tool in both analyzing and fighting these fires.

Southern California has Three Primary Clusters of Fire Detections in the VIIRS Nightfire Data Product from January 8, 2025

1. Malibu -Pacific Palisades
2. Pasadena
3. Sylmar

Pixel detection locations are color coded based on temperature and sized based on radiant heat.

VIIRS Nightfire (VNF)

• A multispectral fire and flare detection product using thermal anomaly detections spanning near-infrared, shortwave infrared, midwave and longwave infrared [1-3].
• The wide spectral range of the detections makes it possible to calculate fire (or flare) temperature, source size and radiant heat with Planck’s Law and its derivatives. VNF is the only daily global fire product reporting temperature and radiant heat.
• VNF version 4 splits the analysis into a high temperature flaming phase, a lower temperature (and frequently larger) non-flaming phase, and an ambient background [4].

The Malibu VNF v.4 product from January 8, 2025, has many pixels having both flaming and non-flaming components – a hitherto unavailable analysis from space relevant to fire fighting.

Satellite Remote Sensing of Flaming Versus Non-Flaming Combustion

• Flaming is hotter, uses oxygen and produces the heat driving non-flaming combustion.
• The non-flaming components include pyrolysis and pre-heating, both of which have lower temperatures than flaming.
• Pyrolysis tears lignin and cellulose apart – releasing the volatile gases consumed by the flaming phase.
• Pre-heating dries the fuel, is above the background temperature and below the pyrolysis temperature.
• VIIRS Nightfire is the only daily global fire product amenable to the analysis of flaming and non-flaming combustion, a valuable distinction for firefighting.

Possible Future Related Research

1. Expanding near-real time VNF v.4 production from one VIIRS instrument to all three.
2. Process nightly VNF v.4 back to 2012.
3. External validation of flaming and non-flaming from nighttime Landsat, airborne and field data.
4. Develop and operation of a global conflagration early warning system. This would be triggered by VNF seasonal or magnitude anomalies from temporal profiles, combined with precipitation and drought indices. There are several options for drought indices, such as https://www.drought.gov/international.

Key References

[1] Elvidge, Christopher D., Mikhail Zhizhin, Feng-Chi Hsu, and Kimberly E. Baugh. “VIIRS nightfire: Satellite pyrometry at night.” Remote Sensing 5, no. 9 (2013): 4423-4449.
[2] Elvidge, Christopher D., Mikhail Zhizhin, Kimberly Baugh, Feng Chi Hsu, and Tilottama Ghosh. “Extending nighttime combustion source detection limits with short wavelength VIIRS data.” Remote Sensing 11, no. 4 (2019): 395.
[3] Zhizhin, Mikhail, Christopher Elvidge, and Alexey Poyda. “Night-Time Detection of Subpixel Emitters with VIIRS Mid-Wave Infrared Bands M12–M13.” Remote Sensing 15, no. 5 (2023): 1189.
[4] Elvidge, Christopher D., Mikhail Zhizhin, Feng Chi Hsu, Tamara Sparks, and Tilottama Ghosh. “Subpixel analysis of primary and secondary infrared emitters with nighttime viirs data.” Fire 4, no. 4 (2021): 83.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mikhail Zhizhin
Research Associate, Earth Observation Group

Mikhail Zhizhin, M.Science in mathematics from the Moscow State University in 1984, Ph.D. in computational seismology and pattern recognition from the Russian Acad. Sci. in 1992. Research positions from 1987 to 2012 in geophysics, space research and nuclear physics at Russian Acad. Sci., later at NOAA and CU Boulder. Currently he is a researcher at the Earth Observation Group at Colorado School of Mines. His applied research fields evolved from high performance computing in seismology, geodynamics, terrestrial and space weather to deep learning in remote sensing. He is developing new machine learning algorithms to better understand the Nature with Big Data.

Christopher Elvidge
Senior Research Associate, Director of Earth Observation Group

Christopher D. Elvidge has decades of experience with satellite low light imaging data, starting in 1994. He pioneered nighttime satellite observation on visible lights, heat sources including gas flares and wildfires, as well as bright lit fishing vessels. He led the development of these nighttime remote sensed products with images from DMSP, JPSS, and Landsat satellites. These data are very popular and used globally in both public and private sectors. As of February 2018, he has more than 11,000 scholarly publication citations.

Morgan Bazilian
Director, Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy

Morgan Bazilian is the Director of the Payne Institute and a Professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines. Previously, he wD.as lead energy specialist at the World Bank. He has over two decades of experience in the energy sector and is regarded as a leading expert in international affairs, policy and investment. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

ABOUT THE PAYNE INSTITUTE

The mission of the Payne Institute at Colorado School of Mines is to provide world-class scientific insights, helping to inform and shape public policy on earth resources, energy, and environment. The Institute was established with an endowment from Jim and Arlene Payne and seeks to link the strong scientific and engineering research and expertise at Mines with issues related to public policy and national security.

The Payne Institute Commentary Series offers independent insights and research on a wide range of topics related to energy, natural resources, and environmental policy. The series accommodates three categories namely: Viewpoints, Essays, and Working Papers.

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DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, viewpoints, or official policies of the Payne Institute or the Colorado School of Mines.