With a persistent stare at the same field of view, the 1-minute data cadence will provide unprecedented real-time surveillance for location and timing of surface temperature rises indicative of fires. The advantage of such spatial and temporal sensitivity can be demonstrated with simulations of the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, which spread so rapidly that resulted in 85 deaths, due to the lack of real-time observations.

Instrument sensitivity modelling was performed by forward modelling the 4 𝜇m signal at the geo-stationary satellite detector array for FUEGO and GOES. Upwelling surface radiance in the absence of fire implemented land surface temperature and emissivity data from ECOSTRESS, for which the ground sample distance is 70 m. While ECOSTRESS emissivity data used is from the 8.8 𝜇m band, for the purposes of demonstration, the resulting signal image devoid of fires constitutes an example of background signal of a realistic terrain. 2018 Camp Fire advancement simulation inputs locations and observation times from a National Institute of Standards and Technology report, and fire perimeters estimated by Lareau, Neil P., et al,2022, JGR Atmos 127.

In the animation on the left, the FUEGO emulation for a 270 m ground sample distance (GSD) shows the fast detector capabilities for 1-minute data cadence, as compared to the existing geostationary satellite GOES-R, which have a ~2 km GSD. and 5 minute data cadence. On the right is the actual observational data from GOES-16, which was the operational GOES-R satellite at the time of the 2018 Camp Fire.

Note the FUEGO GEO observation of rapidly spreading fire spots ahead of the main fire front, which are not resolved by GOES-16.