A breakthrough in wildfire detection: How a new constellation of satellites can detect smaller wildfires earlier

Wildfires are becoming increasingly common due to hotter and drier climates around the world. Until now, firefighters have had to rely on satellite imagery that's either low resolution or only updated a few times a day, making it difficult to detect fires until they've grown larger than a soccer field.

Google Research has teamed up with leaders in the fire community to create FireSat - a purpose-built constellation of satellites designed specifically to detect and track wildfires as small as a classroom (roughly 5x5 meters). With FireSat, authorities will have high-resolution imagery that is updated globally every 20 minutes, helping them respond to fires before they become destructive.

To kickstart this work, Google.org provided $13 million in funding to the initiative led by the Earth Fire Alliance, a nonprofit established to launch the FireSat constellation, with additional support from the Moore Foundation.