Limitations
However, you should be aware that some limitations on the remote detection of fires do exist. Sensors are limited by their resolution, and thus can only detect hot spots of sufficient size.
You should also note that not all hot spots are wild fires - volcanos and power plant explosions can reach the same temperatures as fires and can be confused with them. During the day, a reflection of the sun on a lake's surface may also look like a fire.
For smoke detection, the limitations are mainly over land, where there is a reduction of contrast.
The chapter closed with the difficulties of detecting burnt areas with both polar and geostationary satellites. The shadows of clouds are often mistakenly identified as burnt areas. All these limitations show us why algorithms that process all the information together are so important: they provide thebest information attainable through remote observation.