# The DLR FireBIRD Small Satellite Mission: Evaluation of Infrared Data for Wildfire Assessment
## 3 Results and Discussion  
This chapter lists the results of the performed analysis in both graphical and tabular form. The following figures (Figures 3-8) depict the FireBIRD data for all six areas of interest, alongside with the reference data from MODIS and VIIRS. Since the MWIR method shows the greatest correspondence between all datasets, this method is used as the basis for the FireBIRD figures. The visualizations show the mean FRP of the sensor acquisitions of the three different satellite systems. The values are normalized by area using the respective spatial resolution of each sensor, yielding a measure of FRP in MW per ha. The color gradient from blue to yellow indicates the increasing of values on a range from below 0.25 MW/ha to above 2.5 MW/ha. The Figures 3, 5, 7 and 8 show composites of several overpasses of each sensor for each study region, which results in a denser filling of the grids than would be possible with a single overpass. This is due to the shifting of coordinate center points between overpasses, and is especially recognizable in the MODIS visualizations. Table 1 lists the analysis results, separated by FireBIRD overpass. This table is placed in the appendix section. For each overpass of FireBIRD, the closest overpass of Aqua/Terra MODIS as well as Suomi-NPP VIIRS is specified. The column _Offset (min)_ indicates how temporally far apart the overpass of the reference satellite was, compared to FireBIRD. The values of the other columns are given in ratios of FireBIRD results in relation to the respective reference, if not specified otherwise. All parameters are determined using the MWIR as well as the MWIR/LWIR method. The columns _cells_ and _ref cells_ indicate how many of the grid cells intersect with active fire data from FireBIRD and the reference, respectively. Based on these values, the column _cell ratio_ indicates the correspondence between both datasets. The column _TP FRP ratio_ illustrates the relationship of the mean FRP values contained in the FireBIRD and the reference data for grid cells where both sensors recorded active fires (true positives). Equivalent to this, the column _TP mean bias_ shows the averaged sum of FRP bias values between FireBIRD and the reference data for each true positive. The columns _TP_, _FN_, and _FP_ represent ratios of true positives, false negatives and false positives, as described in the methodology section. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c p{284.5 pt}} \hline \hline
**Incident** & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Brief Description of the Wildfires Analyzed,**} \\  & **as Reported by the Center for Satellite-Based Crisis Information (ZKI)** \\ \hline California/USA & California suffered the largest wildfires in the state’s history in summer 2018. Several civilians were killed in the flames [39]. \\ November 2018 & ZKI: _Fire disaster in California—DLR supports with FireBIRD data_ (15 November 2018, [[https://activations.zki.dlr.de/de/activations/items/ACT139.html](https://activations.zki.dlr.de/de/activations/items/ACT139.html)]([https://activations.zki.dlr.de/de/activations/items/ACT139.html](https://activations.zki.dlr.de/de/activations/items/ACT139.html)) [40]) \\ \hline New South Wales/ & Fires devastated more than 11 mil. hectares in Australia in the fire season of 2019/2020. Over 2000 homes were destroyed, 28 persons have been killed [41]. \\ Australia November 2019 & ZKI: _FireBIRD monitors fires in Australia_ (27 November 2019, [[https://www.dlr.de/eoc/de/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-13297/23615_read-59537](https://www.dlr.de/eoc/de/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-13297/23615_read-59537)]([https://www.dlr.de/eoc/de/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-13297/23615_read-59537](https://www.dlr.de/eoc/de/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-13297/23615_read-59537)) [42]) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Cont. Table 3 represents an extraction of Table A1. This shorter version shows the summarizing results instead of separate results for each overpass.