An automatic identification algorithm for wildfire occurrences near transmission line corridors based on spatio-temporal context

The traditional polar-orbit satellite with low-frequency observations and a fixed observation time is intractable to real-time monitoring for a specific region. Accordingly, a spatio-temporal contextual algorithm for continuous monitoring of wildfires near transmission lines is provided by the Himawari-8 (H-8) geostationary satellite. First, based on the difference in sensitivity of the mid-infrared and thermal infrared bands to the fire spots, the absolute and potential fire spots are determined by a fixed-threshold algorithm. Then, the flame pixels are identified by comparing the ratios between the channel value, mean, and standard deviation of the mid-infrared and thermal infrared from space. Also, persistent fire spots can be located by taking advantage of the high-frequency observation capability of H-8 in conjunction with the fire occurrence probability in terms of time. The proposed technique has been applied to the wildfire monitoring of transmission lines in a provincial power grid in southern China, boosting the accuracy rate to 72.5% and lowering the missing alarm rate to 43.9%, respectively. The current study results are significantly superior to the conventional contextual fire detection algorithm and fixed threshold algorithm. © 2022 Power System Protection and Control Press. All rights reserved.