Wildfires are generally considered a summer event, wreaking havoc on forests and homes during the warmer months. But last week in California, a 32-square-mile wildfire broke out in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. Nearly 250 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed due to intense flames and smoke. Shortly after that, another fire near the New York-New Jersey border, driven by drought, dry weather and high winds, destroyed more than 2,500 acres. Under these conditions, more fires may break out across the country, even in late autumn.

Outdoor enthusiasts, including hikers, bikers, and off-road enthusiasts who want to actively stay away from wildfires and smoke can now use this feature. onX app designating these areas all year round. Thanks to its activity Forest fire and Wildfire Smoke overlays, onX provides real-time updates to help users better understand the perimeter and boundaries of evolving wildfires. Armed with this information, off-road driving is much less likely to be affected by negativities. suffocation, toxic smoke This comes with dangerous levels of burning if users know which areas to avoid.

Converting data into information

The OnX team uses readily available data to arrive at the most up-to-date guidance. National Interagency Fire CenterWith additional details from NASA and NOAA. OnX collects information from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA. NOAA says VIIRS instruments are currently onboard the Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellite missions and produce critical atmospheric imagery and other instrument products, including visible and infrared imagery related to snow and ice cover, clouds, fog, aerosols, fire, smoke plumes . dust, plant health and more.

“Satellites measure Earth’s temperature; “some every five minutes,” says Tony Cannistra, senior software development engineer on onX’s geospatial mapping team. “With a high level of detail, they can detect where wildfires may have started and represent this as flowing hotspots.”

The NASA-supported Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (which the organization calls MODIS) has an imaging band approximately 1,450 miles wide and sees every point on Earth every one to two days in 36 spectral bands. The MODIS instrument is located on the Terra and Aqua satellites and collects data about Earth’s weather.

Hospots are updated hourly and placed on onX’s maps. OnX collects this data and creates graphic layers that show exactly where app users should avoid and displays them on a phone or tablet in the onX Backcountry, onX Offroad and onX Hunt apps. Users can see a developing fire on the map, represented by a glowing yellow dot, long before its surroundings are reported to NIFC. In practice, the Wildfire Smoke Layer shows where the smoke from these fires is drifting and how dense the smoke is. Color-coded graphs represent the density of smoke particles in neighborhoods and potential recreation areas.

Cannistra explains that identifying the location of hot spots is a useful way to determine which part of the fire is actively burning. The fire is burning in different directions, he says, but tracking the heat signature provides data about where the fire could potentially go next and where the smoke is headed. Shading in the digital wildfire smoke layer shows the density of smoke on the ground.

Digital access to wayfinding

Now employing more than 400 people and headquartered in the outdoor paradise of Missoula, Montana, this digital mapping company does more than create beautiful images of the land. The company’s engineering and development department is working intensively; This department is key to creating opportunities beyond the disaggregation and fragmentation of data in different ways. trace finding.

“In some cases, a lot of know-how is required to access these specific data formats,” says Cannistra. “It takes a fair amount of software engineering to dig into this and translate it deliciously.”

The engineering team captures the data and delivers it to the surveyors. This starts a conversation about how it interacts with other data in the application; In some cases this can be a cartographic challenge. For example, they need to ensure that a user can easily distinguish whether the graphics on their vehicle’s touchscreen are visible when viewed on the screen using Apple CarPlay and even in sunlight. Cannistra notes that each track is then tested with internal employees who have pre-release access.

OnX incorporates thousands of sources, such as local city geographic information system data, Forest Service data, and more, to create its online and in-app maps. Recently, the company announced that the platform can direct its users to the best leaf-peeping locations during the fall season by analyzing deciduous tree distribution, recreation and satellite imagery data. Earlier this year, onX acquired TroutRoutes, a mapping resource for fly fishing enthusiasts, and displays individual map layers to inform eclipse anglers of the best spots for viewing.

“Here in the US, we are fortunate to have a robust publicly available dataset,” says Cannistra. “So we can access that data pretty easily, and that means we need to create data processing workflows to pull it from the government data source and present it to our users.” If you’re planning to go on a camping or hiking trip or find trails for off-road fun, create a “comfort circle” with the app before you hit the road. Staying away from hot spots will not only benefit you, it will also keep you out of the way of first responders trying to contain fires.