Wildfire, and wildfire control and prevention, has become an increasingly hot-button issue in recent decades. While the total number of fires occurring annually today is less than it was in the 1990s, fires since 2000 have burned more than double the average annual acreage burned in the 90s, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service last year.Circling the globe at around 22,000 miles, these geostationary satellites take new scans of the Earth every minute, sending information to meteorologists in the form of infrared bands that detect fires and track their growth and movement. Is this going to be practical ?

