Copernicus Masters Awards

Published on Wednesday, 29 October 2014 13:09

"FireHub" - winner of the Best Service Challenge of the
Copernicus Masters 2014

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The FireHub Winning Team (Photo: © Jan Kobel)

The National Observatory of Athens participated in the Best Service Challenge of the Copernicus-masters competition with the operational EO based fire management service, which was developed in the framework of the BEYOND project. The submitted service is entitled "FireHub: A Space Based Fire Management Hub", and has been elected as the winner of the Best Service Challenge of the Copernicus Masters 2014 by an experts committee. The Copernicus-masters competition is organised by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen and aims to support the development of market-oriented applications that use data from the European Union's Copernicus programme (previously known as Global Monitoring of Environment and Security, or GMES).

"FireHub" is a service platform that consolidates a real-time fire detection and monitoring application, a large scale Burnt Scar Mapping during and after wildfires, and a fire smoke dispersion forecasting tool, based on the integration of space technologies with geospatial information and meteorological data. The service has been qualified in the framework of several EC, Copernicus/GMES & ESA projects, relying on fully scalable and transparent automatic processes allowing the transferability of the applications to other climatic and geographic zones in Europe.

The platform addresses real decision-makers' needs and has been deployed on an operational basis to several user stakeholders, including the Greek Forest Fire Management Center of the Fire Brigade, the Ministry of Environment Energy and Climate Change, the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization and other local and regional authorities. The User base is rapidly expanding with more than 500 independent connections at a daily basis (institutional users) during the summer.

"FireHub" is integrated into the Global Fire Monitoring Center that belongs to the International Strategy of UN for Disaster Reduction.

For more information please visit the related website: http://ocean.space.noa.gr/FireHub

The BEYOND project aims at conducting cutting edge interdisciplinary research, by Building a Centre of Excellence for Earth Observation based monitoring of Natural Disasters in South-Eastern Europe. BEYOND foresees to increase its access range to the wider Mediterranean region through the integrated cooperation with twining organizations in Europe and USA. BEYOND Center of Excellence is hosted at the National Observatory of Athens. The BEYOND research portfolio covers a broad spectrum of natural disaster phenomena, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, extreme weather events, floods, fires, fire smoke and toxic gasses dispersion, emission concentrations, dust storms, air quality aspects and their impact to human health.

Furthermore the BEYOND activities are also incorporated in the update GEO workplan under the task DI-01 "Informing Risk Management and Disaster Reduction"- Section C1 Disaster Management Systems as a priority «To make information related to environmental risk and vulnerability easily accessible to a wide range of decision-makers through a virtual platform.

Contact Details:

Dr. Charalampos (Haris) Kontoes Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing National Observatory of Athens I. Metaxa & Vas. Pavlou Str. GR-15236, Penteli, Greece Tel.: +30-210-810-9186, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
	" This publication was supported by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-REGPOT-2012-2013-1), in the framework of the project BEYOND, under Grant Agreement No. 316210 (BEYOND - Building Capacity for a Centre of Excellence for EO-based monitoring of Natural Disasters) "

FIREHUB PRESENTATION

FireHub Presentation - Copernicus Masters 2014 (HD)

Download FireHub Presentation Video

Fire over Chios Island (Greece) on the 18th of August 2012, (from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov)

Architecture of the FireHub

The BSM Web-GIS application. (A1) Real-time Fire tab, (A2) Diachronic BSM tab, (B) Options for choosing between different data layers, (C) Precise Burnt area polygons with their detailed geometry (perimeter and area), (D) Heat maps depicting the concentration of burnt areas over the region/country, (E) Statistical analysis of burnt areas and affected vegetation types, (F) Table depicting the diverse vegetation types burnt at municipality, prefecture and country level, (G) Information on fire occurrences over the same area in the last 30 years, (H) Colour legend assigning different color to each year (1984-2013) and (I) Slider for querying the year of interest.

(a) Diachronic BSM over the Island of Chios from 1984 to 2012, (b, c and d) Heat mapping of burnt areas, at different zoom levels

BSM mapping for critical sites over Greece

The Real Time Fire Monitoring Web-GIS application. (A1) Real-time Fire tab, (A2) Diachronic BSM tab, (A3) Smoke Dispersion tab, (B) Information on the active fires, (C) A snapshot of the monitored active fire, (D) Selection and visualization of different background layers, (E) Query data table with metadata of the observed fire, (F) Colour bar representing the confidence levels of a fire, and (G) Time query sliders.

Dispersion of fire smoke on August 26, 2007, depicted on a MODIS scene acquired at 09:30 UTC

The forecasted smoke dispersion on August 26, 2007 using the FLEXWRF model at 09:00 UTC

In the framework of the BEYOND (Building a Centre of Excellence for Earth Observation based monitoring of Natural Disaster) project, we have developed an operational EO based fire management service. The service consists of three pillars: the real-time fire detection and fire monitoring application, the large scale Burnt Scar Mapping during and after wildfires, and the fire smoke dispersion forecasting tool. Access via: http://ocean.space.noa.gr/FireHub

PRESS ARTICLES | REFERENCES:

The Greek Ministry of Environment uses real time satellite data to detect fires, February 2015, Eurisy, On-Site Article
International Distinction for the National Observatory of Athens on Space Technology, GSRT, December 2014, Article online (in Greek), PDF
International Distinction for the National Observatory of Athens on Space Technology, December 22, 2014, EKT, Newsletter online (in Greek)
Reference on BEYOND Project, Capacity Building for GEOSS - European contributions to capacity building activities in GEO, December 2014, PDF
FireHub on Copernicus Masters Newsletter 10 - End of year news: Tracking a burning issues from space, 15 December, 2014, Newsletter online, Newsletter on PDF, Article "TRACKING A BURNING ISSUE FROM SPACE" on PDF
pdf

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Copernicus_Masters_Newsletter_10

Copernicus Masters Newsletter 10 on PDF

Size : 335.26 ko
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CopMaPM-BCS-Firehub-EN102014

Article entitled "TRACKING A BURNING ISSUE FROM SPACE" on PDF

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FireHub: A Space Based Fire Management Hub, Athina 9.84 (athina984.gr), Interview on radio show "Athens Today", 11 December, 2014, Radiocast Link, Interview (Audio)
FireHub: A Space Based Fire Management Hub, Skai TV (skai.gr), December 03, 2014, Telecast Link, Video (Interview only)
FireHUB: Fire Monitoring from Space, Ethnos Newspaper (ethnos.gr), Saturday November 29, 2014, Link (in Greek)
OBI Presentation at the National Observatory of Athens on the occasion of the Ιnternational Copernicus Masters Awards 2014, Industrial Property Organisation, November 10, 2014, Article on OBI, Article on OBI Facebook, OBI on Facebook
International Distinction for the National Observatory of Athens on Space Technology, Telecast "eco News" on SKAI TV, November 04, 2014, [Telecast Link], [Video]
Interview at Popi Tsapanidou (Live U), Star Channel,November 04, 2014, Link, Video (Interview Only)
Copernicus Masters 2014, Interview at 90.4, Kanali Ena - November 03, 2014, Interview (Audio)
"Space" awards for Greece, tovima.gr, November 02, 2014, Link
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Space_distinctions_for_Greece_(TO_BHMA)

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Best Award on Space Technology for the National Observatory of Athens, SKAI TV "the Good News of the Day" (skai.gr), October 31, 2014, [Telecast Link], [Video]
Four Greek distinctions at the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2014, SBC TV (sbctv.gr), October 30, 2014, Link, Video
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International Competition of Satellite Applications in Berlin: Important distinctions for 4 Greek Researchers, SKAI TV "the Good News of the Day" (skai.gr), October 28, 2014, [Telecast Link], [Video]
Greek Satellite Applications, TO BHMA (tovima.gr), October 25, 2014, Link
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