Enhancing Near Real Time Wildfire Health Risk Assessment with Earth Observation

Wildfires are destructive natural disasters occurring with ever increasing frequency and intensity with profound direct and indirect consequences. While direct impacts on life, assets damages, and losses are clear, indirect impacts, such as the health issues associated with prolonged smoke exposure, are more difficult to assess and thus mitigate in case of disaster. Earth Observation data can provide valuable insights into fire intensity on a large scale and in a timely manner. When combined with existing demographic information, we can gauge the potential health risk associated with wildfires. To automatically estimate the potential health risk during wildfires, we propose FireSENS, an algorithm which can aid warning and decision-making systems during wildfire events, thus enabling a more efficient and targeted approach to mitigate the health consequences.