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Re: General Scoping Recommendations/Discussion: Q&A notes as shared by Tall Timbers on today's (08.26.2020) technical review call: 1)How are you spatially assigning active fire detections with burned area products? We have not developed a methodology to do that at this time, however this is of interest as we continue to explore how active fire detections may contribute to burned area products and might be used as ancillary data. 2) How did you tag active fire detections with FFS OBA? Through temporal matching and then visual analysis. No automated method with our approach, although an automated approach would need to be developed for larger regional analysis. Given the issues with OBA’s we would have to evaluate if this would be a useful exercise. 3) How does Tall Timbers get around the inherent problems with the prescribed fire records? We acknowledge the limitations of these data and use them as general location of the treatment. Depending on the source, many of the fire records do not represent the true area that was burned. 4) Is there a leading fire mapping standard in use which would support improved compatibility? – Considering both RS and stakeholder database systems. Fire mapping standards vary between agencies and private landowners with regards to mapping and attribution. There have been some efforts to combine UDSA (FACTS) and DOI (NFPORS) treatment datasets using WFM RD&A’s Fuel Treatment Integrator so data can be standardized for applications such as IFTDSS, WFDSS, EGP, etc. For RS datasets and products, each has standardized attribution specific to the sensor or product. 5) Can FL database be a surrogate for other state permitting systems? The FL database is a remote sensing application that produces fire history metrics based on burn probability from LANDSAT BA products. Each state has it’s own system for tracking burn authorizations. A standardized permitting system might be best coordinated through the Southern Group of State Foresters. 6) Could TTRS potentially create some kind of a fire probability layer? This could be done by examining convergence of all fire detections or potentially by assigning probability to the modelling process. Very good question and the short answer is yes Tall Timbers is working on prescribed fire probability mapping based on RS data as well as climatology, fuels, vegetation, etc. This is active but unpublished research currently being conducted by our Fire Science folks. 7) Would it be worth considering including in the final scope of work a requirement to assess which burn permits were fulfilled (or a subset of permits)? That would allow statements like “Of the X burn permits in 2020, Y% of permits actually resulted in a fire. Of those, Z% were detected by satellites.” This would be challenging as there is no reporting mechanism for state burn permits to be reported complete or acres burned verified. Additionally, spatial accuracy of the permit location is problematic given that burn permits can be up to 2km from actual permitted location and single points representing multiple burn units can be up to ~ 10 km away [Nowell et al., 2018] The use of reference imagery would be insufficient to overcome these challenges. 8) Incorporating permit data will be critical to attribute the satellite-based fire/burned area detection as prescribed fire. Agree that permit data would be the best source of attribution but unsure of how to overcome challenges. 9) Is the focus of the SE FireMap and current scoping effort focused on only prescribed fire? No, we accept that the final product will be RS based and there is not differentiation between wildfire and prescribed fire. The interim report may have been confusing in this aspect as we used permit records and prescribed fire landowner records as a focus for detection analysis. We recognize that both wildfire and prescribed fire result in ecological change on the landscape and are both important. 10) TTRS should consider evaluating commercial RS products as part of the scoping process. Tall Timbers has conducted literature review of several mapping efforts using commercial satellites. We are aware of several studies that have successfully used commercial products to produce burned area and burn severity maps of small scale plots, we have seen no regional applications. The reason for this is the high cost of commercial imagery. For example, WorldView-3 that has been used in several studies by Tall Timbers collaborators in the New Jersey Pine Barrens cost ~$22.50 per SqKm. Considering that Florida is 170,000 SqKm alone and revisit time of < 2 days, obtaining even 1 year of imagery would be cost prohibitive for the SE. Additionally, beyond a more in depth literature review and providing commercial pricing for sensors to the TOT, Tall Timbers does not have access to commercial imagery to further evaluate. 11) SEFireMap product definition should include additional target accuracy metrics. In addition to the current desired detection threshold for fire size (5-10 acres), consider omission/commission error and how to appropriately set bounds We would defer to the published accuracy assessments of sensors and products reviewed in the scoping phase and NRCS to set appropriate bounds for the SE FireMap. 12) Consider fostering discussion with DOD about accessibility of military satellite data? Andy Beavers shared contacts and offered to reach out... Tall Timbers would be happy to review any DOD remotely sensed burned area or fire detection products. Once we have a chance to assess the products we would certainly be interested in a discussion of how military satellite data could be incorporated into the SE FireMap.

Re: General Scoping Recommendations/Discussion: Q&A notes as shared by Tall Timbers on today's (08.26.2020) technical review call: 1)How are you spatially assigning active fire detections with burned area products? We have not developed a methodology to do that at this time, however this is of interest as we continue to explore how active fire detections may contribute to burned area products and might be used as ancillary data. 2) How did you tag active fire detections with FFS OBA? Through temporal matching and then visual analysis. No automated method with our approach, although an automated approach would need to be developed for larger regional analysis. Given the issues with OBA’s we would have to evaluate if this would be a useful exercise. 3) How does Tall Timbers get around the inherent problems with the prescribed fire records? We acknowledge the limitations of these data and use them as general location of the treatment. Depending on the source, many of the fire records do not represent the true area that was burned. 4) Is there a leading fire mapping standard in use which would support improved compatibility? – Considering both RS and stakeholder database systems. Fire mapping standards vary between agencies and private landowners with regards to mapping and attribution. There have been some efforts to combine UDSA (FACTS) and DOI (NFPORS) treatment datasets using WFM RD&A’s Fuel Treatment Integrator so data can be standardized for applications such as IFTDSS, WFDSS, EGP, etc. For RS datasets and products, each has standardized attribution specific to the sensor or product. 5) Can FL database be a surrogate for other state permitting systems? The FL database is a remote sensing application that produces fire history metrics based on burn probability from LANDSAT BA products. Each state has it’s own system for tracking burn authorizations. A standardized permitting system might be best coordinated through the Southern Group of State Foresters. 6) Could TTRS potentially create some kind of a fire probability layer? This could be done by examining convergence of all fire detections or potentially by assigning probability to the modelling process. Very good question and the short answer is yes Tall Timbers is working on prescribed fire probability mapping based on RS data as well as climatology, fuels, vegetation, etc. This is active but unpublished research currently being conducted by our Fire Science folks. 7) Would it be worth considering including in the final scope of work a requirement to assess which burn permits were fulfilled (or a subset of permits)? That would allow statements like “Of the X burn permits in 2020, Y% of permits actually resulted in a fire. Of those, Z% were detected by satellites.” This would be challenging as there is no reporting mechanism for state burn permits to be reported complete or acres burned verified. Additionally, spatial accuracy of the permit location is problematic given that burn permits can be up to 2km from actual permitted location and single points representing multiple burn units can be up to ~ 10 km away [Nowell et al., 2018] The use of reference imagery would be insufficient to overcome these challenges. 8) Incorporating permit data will be critical to attribute the satellite-based fire/burned area detection as prescribed fire. Agree that permit data would be the best source of attribution but unsure of how to overcome challenges. 9) Is the focus of the SE FireMap and current scoping effort focused on only prescribed fire? No, we accept that the final product will be RS based and there is not differentiation between wildfire and prescribed fire. The interim report may have been confusing in this aspect as we used permit records and prescribed fire landowner records as a focus for detection analysis. We recognize that both wildfire and prescribed fire result in ecological change on the landscape and are both important. 10) TTRS should consider evaluating commercial RS products as part of the scoping process. Tall Timbers has conducted literature review of several mapping efforts using commercial satellites. We are aware of several studies that have successfully used commercial products to produce burned area and burn severity maps of small scale plots, we have seen no regional applications. The reason for this is the high cost of commercial imagery. For example, WorldView-3 that has been used in several studies by Tall Timbers collaborators in the New Jersey Pine Barrens cost ~$22.50 per SqKm. Considering that Florida is 170,000 SqKm alone and revisit time of < 2 days, obtaining even 1 year of imagery would be cost prohibitive for the SE. Additionally, beyond a more in depth literature review and providing commercial pricing for sensors to the TOT, Tall Timbers does not have access to commercial imagery to further evaluate. 11) SEFireMap product definition should include additional target accuracy metrics. In addition to the current desired detection threshold for fire size (5-10 acres), consider omission/commission error and how to appropriately set bounds We would defer to the published accuracy assessments of sensors and products reviewed in the scoping phase and NRCS to set appropriate bounds for the SE FireMap. 12) Consider fostering discussion with DOD about accessibility of military satellite data? Andy Beavers shared contacts and offered to reach out... Tall Timbers would be happy to review any DOD remotely sensed burned area or fire detection products. Once we have a chance to assess the products we would certainly be interested in a discussion of how military satellite data could be incorporated into the SE FireMap.