Geostationary fire monitoring capabilities were greatly improved with the launch of GOES-8 in 1994 (Menzel and Prins, 1996). The GOES-8 offers higher spatial resolution (4 km on GOES-8 versus 13.8 km on GOES-7 in the 3.9 micron band), greater radiometric sensitivity, and improved navigation. For the first time, the GOES is able to monitor diurnal variability in fire intensity by providing visible, 3.9, 10.7 and 12 micron imagery every 15 minutes over the continental US and half-hourly elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. In super rapid scan operational (SRSO) mode, 1-minute imagery is available over limited selected regions in the Western Hemisphere.

The improved capability to detect individual fires with GOES-8 is demonstrated in the figure above which shows a GOES-8 3.9 micron image (panel a) covering Rondonia in Southwest Brazil and a portion of Bolivia at 1745 UTC on 25 August 1995. Hundreds of individual fires are evident as dark hot spots. Although a direct comparison of GOES-8 and GOES-7 was not possible due to the westerly location of the GOES-7 platform at this time, similar data from GOES-7 for 29 August 1988 are shown in panel b. It is possible to see much more detail in the GOES-8 data, including land features and localized fire activity. The GOES-7 VAS was capable of distinguishing a fire of area 0.03 km2 with a mean temperature of 450K at the sub-satellite point. For GOES-8, with roughly the same noise constraints, the minimal detectable fire burning at 450K is .002 km2. (Prins and Menzel, 1996)

The GOES ABBA was revised to take advantage of the improved GOES-8 fire detection capabilities. The ABBA has evolved into a more robust application based in part on experienced gained from participation in the Smoke Clouds and Radiation Experiment in Brazil (SCAR-B) in 1995 and the SCAR-C (California) campaign in 1994 (Prins et al., 1998).