Demonstration of forest fire detection and monitoring system in Nepal

05-Mar-2012

The forest fire detection and monitoring system was demonstrated to officials of Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Singha Durbar on 5th March 2012. The program was held under the chairmanship of Honorable Secretary Mr. Navin Kumar Ghimire.

Mr. Basanta Shrestha gave introductory remarks on the system and highlighted its usefulness in the Nepalese context. Mr. Sudip Pradhan presented and demonstrated the MODIS based forest fire detection and monitoring system to the attendants. The Honorable Secretary and other officials showed keen interest in the system and decided to subscribe for fire alerts.

MODIS based forest fire detection and monitoring system for Nepal has been developed by ICIMOD in close collaboration with the Department of Forest, Nepal. The system facilitates data acquisition, processing, reporting and feedback on fire location information in an automated manner. It provides location information at 1×1 KM resolution on the active fires which are present during the satellite over pass twice daily. The system is now launched as a pilot phase to evaluate different operational aspects of running at national level and will be established as an operational system with necessary improvements in near futureThe following information and products are automatically provided to the concerned users during the afternoon and evening hours on a daily basis:

SMS alert with fire location details and facility to receive feedback

Email notification, containing fire map and information on fires

Online visualization of fire locations on ICIMOD Mountain GeoPortal (http://geoportal.icimod.org/nepalforestfire)

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