A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection

UAVs are essential for forest fire detection due to vast forest areas and inaccessibility of high-risk zones, enabling rapid long-range inspection and detailed close-range surveillance. However, aerial photography faces challenges like multi-scale target recognition and complex scenario adaptation (...

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Main Authors: Yalin Zhang, Xue Rui, Weiguo Song
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-07-01
Series:Remote Sensing
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/15/2593
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author Yalin Zhang
Xue Rui
Weiguo Song
author_facet Yalin Zhang
Xue Rui
Weiguo Song
author_sort Yalin Zhang
collection DOAJ
description UAVs are essential for forest fire detection due to vast forest areas and inaccessibility of high-risk zones, enabling rapid long-range inspection and detailed close-range surveillance. However, aerial photography faces challenges like multi-scale target recognition and complex scenario adaptation (e.g., deformation, occlusion, lighting variations). RGB-Thermal fusion methods integrate visible-light texture and thermal infrared temperature features effectively, but current approaches are constrained by limited datasets and insufficient exploitation of cross-modal complementary information, ignoring cross-level feature interaction. A time-synchronized multi-scene, multi-angle aerial RGB-Thermal dataset (RGBT-3M) with “Smoke–Fire–Person” annotations and modal alignment via the M-RIFT method was constructed as a way to address the problem of data scarcity in wildfire scenarios. Finally, we propose a CP-YOLOv11-MF fusion detection model based on the advanced YOLOv11 framework, which can learn heterogeneous features complementary to each modality in a progressive manner. Experimental validation proves the superiority of our method, with a precision of 92.5%, a recall of 93.5%, a mAP50 of 96.3%, and a mAP50-95 of 62.9%. The model’s RGB-Thermal fusion capability enhances early fire detection, offering a benchmark dataset and methodological advancement for intelligent forest conservation, with implications for AI-driven ecological protection.
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spelling doaj-art-8dbce3e82a7f4a658c2fced47016283e2025-08-20T04:00:53ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922025-07-011715259310.3390/rs17152593A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire DetectionYalin Zhang0Xue Rui1Weiguo Song2State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, ChinaSchool of Emergency Management, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, ChinaState Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, ChinaUAVs are essential for forest fire detection due to vast forest areas and inaccessibility of high-risk zones, enabling rapid long-range inspection and detailed close-range surveillance. However, aerial photography faces challenges like multi-scale target recognition and complex scenario adaptation (e.g., deformation, occlusion, lighting variations). RGB-Thermal fusion methods integrate visible-light texture and thermal infrared temperature features effectively, but current approaches are constrained by limited datasets and insufficient exploitation of cross-modal complementary information, ignoring cross-level feature interaction. A time-synchronized multi-scene, multi-angle aerial RGB-Thermal dataset (RGBT-3M) with “Smoke–Fire–Person” annotations and modal alignment via the M-RIFT method was constructed as a way to address the problem of data scarcity in wildfire scenarios. Finally, we propose a CP-YOLOv11-MF fusion detection model based on the advanced YOLOv11 framework, which can learn heterogeneous features complementary to each modality in a progressive manner. Experimental validation proves the superiority of our method, with a precision of 92.5%, a recall of 93.5%, a mAP50 of 96.3%, and a mAP50-95 of 62.9%. The model’s RGB-Thermal fusion capability enhances early fire detection, offering a benchmark dataset and methodological advancement for intelligent forest conservation, with implications for AI-driven ecological protection.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/15/2593forest fireUAV multispectral imageryYOLOv11wildfire datasetsmall object detectionattention mechanism
spellingShingle Yalin Zhang
Xue Rui
Weiguo Song
A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
Remote Sensing
forest fire
UAV multispectral imagery
YOLOv11
wildfire dataset
small object detection
attention mechanism
title A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
title_full A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
title_fullStr A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
title_full_unstemmed A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
title_short A UAV-Based Multi-Scenario RGB-Thermal Dataset and Fusion Model for Enhanced Forest Fire Detection
title_sort uav based multi scenario rgb thermal dataset and fusion model for enhanced forest fire detection
topic forest fire
UAV multispectral imagery
YOLOv11
wildfire dataset
small object detection
attention mechanism
url https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/15/2593
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