A new system of fire tracking to reduce bushfires in Madagascar

Every year, many regions of Madagascar, whether in the East, in the West, in the North or, and especially, in the South, are affected by the phenomenon of “Doro Tanety” and “Tavy” or bushfire. Every year, thousands of hectares of forests and vegetations are reduced to ashes, and that is mainly due to the lack of efficient means to prevent the fires from expanding.

Concerning that fire-prevention issue, the ministry of Environment along with the NGO “Conservation International” and the USAID launched last Wednesday a new system of tracing via satellites any case of bushfires in Madagascar. This new system, which uses NASA satellites Terra and Aqua, is capable of detecting fires in an area of 50 cm² on the ground, and providing precise geographical data of the place where the fires are located. But what is really interesting with this new fire-tracking system is that the geographical data provided by the satellites Terra and Aqua are available to everyone through the Internet through the ministry of Environment’s website: http://www.minevf.gov.mg

The main objective of this fire-tracking system via satellites is to check the expansion of the bushfires by alerting the population in the concerned area to take action immediately as soon as a fire starts. While capable of alerting the local population about an imminent danger surrounding their area, district and region, the new satellite-based system of tracing bushfires in Madagascar seems to be very much efficient.

But to what extent is that system efficient when the local population’s available means to fight fires include spades, piece of cloths, and branches of trees?