Method for detecting and combating forest and surface fires

A method for the detection and combating of forest and surface fires, comprising:

• observing and detecting fires using an infrared camera on board an observation aircraft;
• georeferencing images obtained by the infrared camera pixel-wise using location data of the observation aircraft obtained by a navigation system;
• testing the georeferenced infrared image for hot points caused by a fire, and transmitting coordinates of the hot points via a data link to a central data processing system on the ground;
• automatically generating deployment plans for available firefighting vehicles in the central data processing system, taking into consideration data relating to the terrain and data on available firefighting equipment;
• transferring the deployment plans generated in the central data processing system to on-board management systems of deployed vehicles;
• representing deployment data and coordinates corresponding to the deployment plans via output apparatus of the on-board management systems of the deployed vehicles;
• the deployed vehicles carrying out fire-fighting based on the data displayed by the on-board management systems;
• detecting actual deployment results and evaluating the effectiveness of the deployment in the central data processing system;
• said central data processing system computing simulated results of the generated deployment plans and their effects;
• and
• comparing effectiveness of the detected deployment results with the computed simulated results.