OSBORNE™

Wildland Fire Modelling, Analysis, and Mapping Tool

Named for the Osborne Firefinder, the sighting instrument in fire lookout towers: a lookout aims it at a column of smoke and reads the bearing, and the bearings from two towers cross where the fire is. Osborne does two jobs: it models fire and checks the model against real fires, and, with Tessera, it is planned to turn the model into warnings for the people on the line.

Status: in development Osborne is used in-house by Trajanus and is not yet available outside the company. Its results are model scenarios, not validated forecasts. We will publish scores once burns have been measured and audited.

ArcGIS Pro map from an Osborne run: the modelled 2022 Hermits Peak Fire in New Mexico on satellite imagery, shaded by fire intensity, with legend, scale and north arrow — Straight out of ArcGIS Pro: Osborne's replay of the 2022 Hermits Peak Fire after 24 model hours, shaded by fire intensity. Model scenario, not yet audited.

What Osborne does

01 · MODEL

Grow the fire

Runs FlamMap, the US Forest Service fire model, with Trajanus's own inputs: landscape edits and fuel moisture learned from past fires.

02 · MAP

Show it on the ground

Paints the fire's growth on satellite imagery, coloured by fireline intensity, beside the mapped perimeters. Maps go to ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online.

03 · WARN

Tessera: time to fire

Planned: will check crew positions from ArcGIS Field Maps, Garmin units or phones against the model's fire arrival times, and give incident command threat levels. Decision support, never a substitute for LCES.

Six workspaces, in order

How Osborne works, step by step

Each workspace is one tab of the app. The steps to press are on the left, the map is in the middle, and the controls are on the right.

Workspace 1

LANDFIRE: get the landscape

In: where the fire is, and its year.

What it does: orders the landscape for that area from the LANDFIRE Product Service at 30 metres (elevation, slope, aspect, fuel model and the four canopy layers), from the LANDFIRE version made before the fire, and checks what arrives.

Out: a checked landscape file, with a record of where every layer came from.

The Osborne app on workspace 1, LANDFIRE: the landscape's fuel picture on the map over the Hermits Peak Fire area, with the weather stations round it, and the step's record on the right — Workspace 1 with a landscape ready: its fuel picture on the map.

Workspace 2

IFTDSS: correct the fuels, or accept them

In: the landscape from workspace 1.

What it does: lets the landscape be accepted as LANDFIRE delivered it, or corrected in IFTDSS, the Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System, and compares an edited landscape with the original, cell for cell.

Out: the landscape version the run will use, and a record of the choice.

The Osborne app on workspace 2, IFTDSS: the landscape on the map, and on the right the choice to accept it, edit it, or go on to FlamMap — Workspace 2: the landscape accepted as delivered, with the choice to edit it in IFTDSS.

Workspace 3

FlamMap: run the fire, then score it

In: the landscape, a starting fire from a mapped perimeter, the weather the stations recorded, and a run card that fixes every setting.

What it does: registers the run card, runs FlamMap, the US Forest Service fire model, and scores the model's growth against the next mapped perimeter.

Out: the fire's arrival-time and intensity grids, a score, and a one-page write-up of the run in plain words.

The Osborne app on workspace 3, FlamMap: a finished model run of the 2022 Hermits Peak Fire, the model's burn and the mapped perimeters on the map, with the run's record on the right — Workspace 3 at the end of a run: the model's burn and the mapped perimeters. Model scenario, not yet audited.

Workspace 4

ArcGIS Pro: watch it grow, make the map

In: a finished run.

What it does: imports the run into an ArcGIS Pro project and plays the fire's growth on satellite imagery, two model minutes per frame, coloured by the run's own fireline intensity, beside the mapped perimeters.

Out: an ArcGIS Pro project and a finished map layout.

The Osborne app on workspace 4, ArcGIS Pro: the run's fire growth painted on satellite imagery, with the mapped perimeters drawn over it — Workspace 4: the run's fire crawl at its end, beside the mapped perimeters. Model scenario, not yet audited.

Workspace 5

ArcGIS Online: publish it

In: the ArcGIS Pro project.

What it does: publishes the run's layers to ArcGIS Online as a private item, and records that the item was checked.

Out: a hosted feature layer in ArcGIS Online, private until it is shared with the people who need it.

The Osborne app on workspace 5, ArcGIS Online: the run's published layers on the map, and on the right the record that the project is published privately and complete — Workspace 5: the run's published layers, private in ArcGIS Online. Model scenario, not yet audited.

Workspace 6 · planned

Tessera: time to fire

In: crew positions, and a run's fire arrival times.

What it will do: check each position against the model's arrival times and give incident command threat levels.

Out: time-to-fire warnings. Tessera is planned, not built yet. Decision support, never a substitute for LCES.

What every run produces

ArcGIS Pro map layout from an Osborne run: the modelled 2022 Hermits Peak Fire on satellite imagery, shaded by fire intensity, with legend, scale and north arrow — A map: the ArcGIS Pro layout of the run. Model scenario, not yet audited.

The top of a run's narrative report: its title, the run's name, and in plain words what was done and what happened — A write-up: the top of the run's one-page narrative report. Model scenario, not yet audited.

A score: the model's growth against the next mapped perimeter. A self-test, not yet audited.

Replay

How it learns

Every fire that has already burned is a test the model can take. Osborne takes them one at a time and keeps what it learns.

1Rebuild a past fire: its landscape from LANDFIRE and the weather actually recorded.
2Run the model from the fire's start.
3Score the model's growth against each mapped perimeter.
4Write up every run in plain words: what was done, the score, what it means, what was learned.
5Carry what was learned into the next run.

The Osborne app on tab 4: step-by-step instructions on the left, the replay map in the centre, run controls on the right — Inside the Osborne app: a replay of the 2022 Hermits Peak Fire on tab 4, with the steps on the left and the run's controls on the right. Model scenario, not yet audited.

Osborne and Tessera as services

Osborne as a service

For counties: fire behaviour for community wildfire protection plans, run by Trajanus and delivered into your own ArcGIS Online.

Tessera as a service (planned)

Crew tracking and threat levels (planned): crews will share position through ArcGIS Field Maps, we will run the model and the threat check, and incident command will get a web map or dashboard. Nothing to install.

The Osborne app

For agencies that want to run it themselves, on their own workstations, with their own ArcGIS.

Built on public fire science

The tools and data the fire community trusts

Osborne does not invent its own physics in a black box. It runs the fire models the federal fire science labs built, on the national data the agencies publish, and checks the result against the record.

USDA Forest Service fire science labs

FlamMap, FARSITE and the minimum-travel-time model, developed at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, are the fire-growth models behind Osborne's runs.

LANDFIRE

The national 30-metre maps of fuels, vegetation and terrain from the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior. Every run starts from a LANDFIRE landscape.

Recorded fire perimeters (NIFC and NIROPS)

Every replay is scored against recorded fire perimeters: NIFC's archive of incident perimeters, and a published dataset of perimeters mapped by the national infrared program (NIROPS).

Fire weather records

Recorded weather from Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS), through the interagency Fire Environment Mapping System (FEMS), drives every replay.

Esri ArcGIS

Every Osborne map is made in ArcGIS Pro and published to ArcGIS Online. Trajanus is a member of the Esri Partner Network.

NWCG standards

Fire behaviour classes on our maps follow the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, such as the flame-length classes of PMS 461.

Osborne uses these organisations' published tools, data and standards. It is not made, endorsed or certified by them.

Where Osborne comes from

2013Nineteen Granite Mountain Hotshots die on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Bill King founds ARGOS FireTech and builds the first prototype: satellite GPS tracking on an Esri web map.
2016–17Field test: two firefighters tracked over 350 miles of backcountry. More than 15,000 position reports, none missed.
July 2017Presented at the Esri User Conference in San Diego. Then shelved: the technology worked, but access, funding and federal procurement stood in the way.
Late 2024Revived at Trajanus as Prometheus, and rebuilt around fire modelling and AI.
Oct–Nov 2026Renamed Osborne™. The app runs its first model runs, and every run is scored and written up.
2027Prescribed-burn field program in Arizona and Colorado.

Work in fire behavior, GIS or fire operations?

We would like to hear from you.

[email protected]