Description
Hokkaido University (HU) is one of the world leaders in developing new earth-observing space technology. Dr. Koji Nakau leads their wildfire remote sensing applications team. He's working with various partners-including UAF-on new satellite-derived products delivered to wildland fire managers in Alaska and around the world. They are especially excited about the May 24th (2014) launch of a rocket carrying ALOS-2 (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) which is also carrying a couple microsatellites with sensors specifically designed by his team to detect wildfire signatures. In addition to improving real-time operational support, satellite data is analyzed in support of wildfire propagation modeling, smoke transport, fuels estimates, and post-fire ecology.