Despite the quarantine due to COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in wildfires, which become even more difficult to detect and control. Because of that, FueGONE App intends to alert users of new fires in near real time, using satellite and research data provided by NASA, and data provided by official governments and international entities. MAYAS know that the protection of ecosystems and communities that surround them is truly important. A poor management of wildfires creates a background where biodiversity is threatened. Considering this current situation, FueGONE App will contribute to the local firefighters and governments in the combat of fires by registering them.
The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has changed many aspects of our daily lives. Several countries have established curfews, lockdowns, or stay-at-home orders. These measures focus on limiting the time people spent out of their homes. The Quiet Place challenge gives us a perfect opportunity to explore how the measures mentioned above have positively or negatively affected our environment. Our multidisciplinary team encompasses environmentalists, researchers, innovators, and engineers, where the environment brings us together. Some members of this team are part of a non-profit environmental organization called Un Pulmon Mas, in Santa Ana, El Salvador. They have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with firefighters to suffocate some wildfires, and we are aware of the need to provide firefighters with a useful tool to fight fires effectively.
As we analyzed the satellite data, and we realized that indeed greenhouse gases emission such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide levels decreased compared to data from the same period in 2019. Also, we were interested in analyzing how the number of wildfires changed during this time. After analyzing data from Central America, we decided to focus on our city, Santa Ana in El Salvador, and we found that within the first month of the lockdown (March 2020), wildfires have increased. Despite the reason for this increase, firefighters can’t timely respond to wildfires because they rely on people's reports, and citizens are staying home. Thus, we decided to create an app that monitors wildfires, providing meaningful data such as location, potential small communities affected, and possible fauna & flora affected especially endangered species. By providing this data, local authorities and firefighters could develop effective strategies to fight back wildfires in years to come.
NASA through the SpaceApps Challenge made data available where we used NASA's Near real-time (NRT) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Active Fire detection product (VIIRS S-NPP 375m) and incorporated downloaded data for the lockdown months into the app alongside species occurrences, villages and forest type to evaluate if there was any potential hazard within 1km of the center of the fire. In further versions of the app, we intend to use land surface temperature data (MODIS Terra) to assess the risk and intensity of wildfires, as well as wind direction.The following software and coding languages, such as HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Node.JS, Miro, Figma, SlideBean, Google Docs, Zoom, Google Meet, Google Calc, were used to develop this project.
As a team, we learned that finding specific data and its source became somewhat difficult, but in this challenge we learned to search efficiently and effectively. We understood how we can choose, take and transform this data into relevant information for our target audience. By knowing how to use these sites and their data, we were able to compare the differences between the data obtained before and during the pandemic.