Nasa Space APPs 2019
Cross-check information provided by the user with data provided by NASA for fire outbreak identification and report to responsible agencies.
NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge 2019
One of the stages of this challenge took place in São José do Rio Preto in 2019. It was a great opportunity to meet people with good ideas and work together. The goal was to develop a project using NASA data to improve the world.
What is the Space Apps Challenge?
Since its inception in 2012, NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge has become the world’s largest global hackathon, engaging thousands of citizens across the globe to use NASA’s open data to build innovative solutions to challenges we face on Earth and in space. More information here: https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/
Space Apps introduces problem-solvers worldwide to NASA’s free and open data. NASA missions to Earth, our Sun and solar system, and out into the universe – all gather data in pursuit of new knowledge, to expand our understanding through new scientific discoveries, and to help us to improve life on Earth. By using NASA data to solve each year’s challenges, Space Apps teams learn about NASA’s data, and share in the creation and application of the knowledge that results.
We enrolled a project in the Spot That Fire V2.0 category.
Your challenge is to create an application that leverages NASA’s near-real-time and archival wildfire datasets along with other tools to support firefighting and fire mitigation efforts. This challenge builds on last year’s challenge of the same name by calling for innovative ideas and apps that focus on how to engage and enable citizens to assist with the entire firefighting and fire mitigation process. Details
Our project was called Report that fire
Communication channel between the population and public firefighting agencies
Cross-check information provided by the user with data provided by NASA for fire outbreak identification and report to responsible agencies.
The problem with forest fires was the biggest negative highlight for Brazil in 2019. The environmental damage is huge and much has been done to try to mitigate this problem. A widely used approach is the use of satellite data to attempt to detect such fire outbreaks in order to quickly combat them.
However, there are still some limitations and points of failure in this approach:
- Weather conditions may interfere with the detection process, such as clouds and smoke;
- Satellite resolution may lead to inaccurate detections in fire location and proportion;
- There may be a delay in detection due to the passage time and minimum size of fire front required for detection.
In order to obtain better results in fire detection, we have created a facilitated communication channel between the population and the responsible agencies, generating more accurate alerts and additional information to help in the fight against the fire.
The main advantage of this project is that nothing will change in the daily lives of the population and the fire brigade.
- No registration or download of new applications is required to send alerts;
- Firefighters continue to receive notifications in a conventional manner through telephone calls.
Way of sending alerts
Through widely used applications:
- Creating alerts in travel and GPS apps:
- Google Maps;
- Waze;
- Uber.
- By sending the location to a messaging app ChatBot:
- WhatsApp;
- Telegram.
Correlation with NASA data
A variety of weather information is used from the informed event location. These weather informations are made available by NASA and are used to classify the event with a severity level.
- Satellite-identified fire spots;
- Temperature;
- Air and soil moisture level;
- Wind speed and direction.
Fire Department Notification
Just as it is traditionally made
- Through a telephone call;
- Made automatically with detailed fire information;
- No additional system access required.
Example phone call (English-US):
Example phone call (Portuguese-Brazil):
Application Result
For users:
- Makes it easy for the driving user to send the alert via a GPS APPs;
- The person may have some fear of calling the fire department, as it is difficult to tell the fire location accurately.
For firefighters:
- More accurate fire location identification;
- Alert with additional weather information;
- Assertiveness of mobilization of the corporation, according to the urgency of the situation;
- Reduces the incidence of prank calls.
More information about the project here.
Results
With this project, we were one of the winners in the local stage and also won a nomination in the global stage.
Team Members
- Sabrina Gonçalves da Silva
- Matheus Henrique Figueiredo Rafael
- Igor Tominaga Sanches
- Edinei dos Santos Cavalcanti
- Renan Luz Pereira de Souza
- Bruno Barreto Carvalho
- Rafael Stefanini Carreira
- Matheus Carreira Andrade
- Jean Michel Cabrera Silva
- Rafael Landim de Souza
