MASTER Airborne Multispectral Imagery of California Wildfires

Six flights of the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument captured calibrated radiance data over California in November 2007, specifically targeting wildfire-affected areas. The dataset provides Level 1B georeferenced imagery across 50 spectral bands from visible to thermal infrared wavelengths at approximately 10-meter spatial resolution. This deployment was coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory.

Use Cases

• Mapping post-fire burn severity and vegetation recovery using calibrated radiance across 50 spectral bands.
• Developing and validating algorithms for satellite-based fire detection using airborne thermal infrared data.
• Analyzing surface material composition and temperature through spectral signatures from visible to long-wave infrared wavelengths.
• Conducting cross-sensor calibration studies by comparing MASTER data with coarser-resolution satellite imagery like MODIS or ASTER.

Strengths

• Contains calibrated radiance data across 50 specific spectral bands, from 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers.
• Provides high spatial resolution imagery at approximately 10 meters per pixel from an airborne platform.
• Includes ancillary data such as flight paths, instrument configuration, and spectral band information for each of the six flights.
• Data collection was temporally focused over a critical 11-day period (November 5-15, 2007) during active wildfire events.

Limitations

• The dataset's temporal scope is limited to a single campaign in November 2007, not suitable for long-term trend analysis.
• Primary data is stored in the legacy HDF-4 format, which may require specialized tools for access and processing.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: Data.gov lists March 2026, while NASA Earthdata lists November 2007.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) at Nellis Air Force Base, coordinated for NASA.

Collection Method

Data collected via the MASTER instrument aboard a DOE B-200 aircraft during six dedicated flights.

Time Range

2007-11 05 to 2007-11-15

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:00:39.981591

Geography

Southern California, U.S., specifically areas affected by wildfires.