NOAA Satellites to Assist with Wildfires

With California Ag Today, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

You know the famous Dwight Eisenhower quote on agriculture: "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."

Sometimes it can feel like that in the realm of wildfires with things being signed and passed and discussed while, on the ground, tangible action is needed. In what is hopefully a connector between those two worlds, the USDA has now announced additional steps to safeguard western communities in the face of increasingly dangerous and intense wildfires.

Here's what it looks like on the ground: the agency is building advanced wildfire detection capabilities using satellite technology.

Here’s what it looks like in federal speak: an agreement between USDA’s Forest Service, the Interior Department, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allows the use of NOAA’s Geostationary and Operation Environmental Satellite.

“This partnership is one of the many ways we’re investing in technology to improve firefighter and community safety,” says Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Wildland firefighting will always require highly skilled individuals on the ground, but with more real-time information, we can reduce the risks to pilots and improve our response time, reducing the risk to impacted communities.”