CSS provides fire detection support to the Atmospheric Science and Technology Applications team with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services. CSS Surface Characteristics Scientist serves on the Fire Emissions and Fire Detection teams, providing data manipulation, algorithm development, and performance evaluation for the system. This ensures fast and reliable satellite data to stakeholders, as well as researchers in the long-term. The CSS surface characteristics scientist will transition to Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)-Based Next Generation Fire System data retrieval and validation for the U.S. Department of the Interior federal land fire cases. This system is an experimental satellite-based fire detection algorithm developed by the University of Wisconsin. It uses multi-band imaging capabilities to obtain high-resolution atmospheric imagery and generate a variety of applied products, one of which includes visible and infrared imaging for detecting fires, smoke, and atmospheric aerosols. CSS will be working on location accuracy of fire detection for the Next Generation Fire System.

world map on left, map of Africa on right. Dots ranging from blue to yellow show fire burning.
VIIRS EFIRE Algorithm detecting and characterising fires across the globe, and specifically biomass burning in west and central Africa, on February 1, 2026. The higher the Fire Radiative Power (FRP), the more intense the fire.

See More CSS Insights

Global map shows colors of red around the equator which slowly change to dark greens near north and south poles.

Advancing Severe Weather Predictions with Artificial Intelligence 

As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies evolve in Earth sciences, CSS employee owners (formerly Riverside staff) are growing our expertise in this field. CSS employee owners are advancing technologies for our client, NOAA’s Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR). Our staff have developed a framework, exploiting modern AI/ML techniques, to rapidly…

Octocoral in a tank

Planning, Preparing for, and Participating in a Major Partner Workshop

The Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities (MDBC) team with NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science attended a team meeting at the Wicker Center in Gulfport, Mississippi. CSS employee owners supporting this team (as part of our joint venture with RPI) participated in the meeting January 26-29. The objective of this workshop was for project managers, advisors, and partners to discuss 2025 accomplishments and plan next steps for 2026 and…

Employees Receive Green Sustainability Award of Excellence

Congratulations to our team supporting the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for receiving the Green Sustainability Award of Excellence. Our team led the charge helping CDC to upgrade their spill cabinets across all campuses (Atlanta, GA; Fort Collins, CO; San Juan, PR), which now include a more sustainable material called Trivorex ®. This highly absorbent…