NASA Develops Sensor to Improve Firefighter Safety

Alabama Forestry Commission wildland firefighter Jason Berry teaches NASA Wildland Fires Technology Program Manager Teresa Kauffman how to drive a fire bulldozer during a stakeholder event April 23-24 in Andalusia, Alabama. NASA FireSense scientists have been working with the AFC to integrate thermal sensors onto these dozers, which notify the dozer operator if the radiant heat from a nearby fire reaches a dangerous threshold.

The sensors also provide researchers with important data on what happens beneath the canopy during a fire. In April, researchers and firefighters gathered in southern Alabama to discuss challenges and advances in firefighting, and to demonstrate the new technology. The event was part of a collaboration between NASA and the Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC). The goal: to make firefighting safer and gather critical data on fire behavior. “As we try to develop technologies that allow us to understand and respond to wildfires with our partners, ground observations are vital to provide context for what we are seeing from space,” said Ian Brosnan, program manager for wildland fires at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The Alabama Forestry Commission tests the new thermal sensor developed by NASA’s FireSense project for their fleet of fire dozers, during the initial integration in September 2025. After FireSense scientists installed the sensor, AFC operators drove the dozer next to a test fire, at the distance the dozers normally operate on a fire line. The thermal sensors performed as planned and have since been deployed on active wildfires. Firefighters nationwide use bulldozers, colloquially referred to as fire dozers, on the front line of a fire to clear vegetation and to create fire breaks, which slow or stop a wildfire’s spread. This often puts dozers and their operators within feet of the flames. The AFC is switching its fleet to a model of bulldozer that has an enclosed cab called an “envirocab.” While envirocabs are safer for operators than open cabs, the enclosure makes it more difficult to gauge when radiant heat from the fire has reached a dangerous temperature. Alabama Forestry Commission fire analyst Ethan Barrett gives an overview of fire dozer operations to scientists and researchers from NASA’s FireSense project and other university and commercial partners during the April event.

Key points

• The sensors also provide researchers with important data on what happens beneath the canopy during a fire.
• In April, researchers and firefighters gathered in southern Alabama to discuss challenges and advances in firefighting, and to demonstrate the new technology.
• The event was part of a collaboration between NASA and the Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC).
• The goal: to make firefighting safer and gather critical data on fire behavior.
• “As we try to develop technologies that allow us to understand and respond to wildfires with our partners, ground observations are vital to provide context for what we are seeing from space,” said…