Indian forest ecosystems especially deciduous forests and grasslands in India are prone to fires every year. Recurrent fires potentially harm vegetation dynamics of the ecosystems and may disturb trophic structure. Forest fires can also emanate greenhouse gases and aerosols and may be critical in the context of climate change. Annual estimated loss in India due to forest fire is around Rs.4400 M. Hence, the fire management calls for priority in India during summer as a key forest management prerogative.

Existing fire alert systems in the country mainly depends on fire watchtowers, information collected by beat guards and communicated through wireless . Size and accessibility of the geographic regions dealt constrain the efficiency of such exercises. Rapid damage assessment and mitigation planning also need efficient and reliable information support.

Satellite remote sensing with its synoptic and temporal coverage can augment the ground operations in terms of fire detection, damage assessment and planning the mitigation in a time and cost efficient manner. Synergy of satellite systems covering IRS P6, IRS 1D, TERRA/AQUA, NOAA, DMSP, ENVISAT are useful in forest fire detection,active fire progression monitoring, near real time damage assessment, and mitigation planning.

As part of Disaster Management Support Programme of Department of Space, National Remote Sensing Agency is providing services on
Fire alerts – Value added daily active fire locations
Fire progression – High temporal resolution burnt area expansion
Burnt area assessment – Mapping episodic fire event
Mitigation planning – Geoinformatics based planning input