Devastating fires in Greece, Portugal and the United States, saw the evacuation of holiday makers, residents, and businesses and homes consumed in minutes. Citizens of northern European nations would be mistaken if they thought this is an issue that needn’t concern them because climate change has induced wetter winters in norther climes which is fuelling growth that provides the ideal conditions for summer fires.
Wetter, milder winters lead to increased growth of bushes and grass within forests and other habitats. This increased growth then dries out in the summer, and the lack of water, both in the environment and within the plants themselves, turns the added growth into the perfect fuel for a fire. A good example of this is the 2022 wildfires in Dagenham and Wennington in East London. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but many homes, shops, vehicles and acres of farmland were destroyed.
In addition to the life-threatening danger to humans – in particular the firefighters deployed to tackle the blazes – to wildlife, to infrastructure and to countryside, wildfires bring a huge financial cost. Attempting to control and extinguish wildfires costs billions; a study by University College London found that California’s 2018 wildfires alone cost the US $148.5 billion. Capital losses and health costs within the state amounted to an additional $59.9 billion.
Detection difficulties
Wildfires can spread at a speed of up to 14.27 miles per hour, so it doesn’t take long for a tiny fire to become an uncontrollable monster. This is why early detection is so important.
The traditional forms of detection have been towers, cameras, and satellites. All have advantages and limitations. By the time a fire is large enough for the smoke to have risen above the tree canopy and be spotted from a tower (by a human or a camera) it is already well established and becoming difficult to tackle. And a fire has to be fairly large before a satellite will ‘see’ it, and unless the satellite is geosynchronous it may not come into range until the fire is already out of control.
Advances in technology
Sensors have been developed that can be placed in the forest (or other habitats) and can ‘smell’ tiny quantities of smoke, allowing even a small smouldering pile of leaves to be detected well before it turns into a giant fire. The sensors send an alert and can give an exact location helping fire fighters reach the spot as fast as possible. The sensors can even tell the difference between the fumes of a truck driving by and the smoke from a forest fire.
There is often scant mobile coverage in large forests or on remote hills covered with rare heathland, yet this is exactly where we need it if the early detection methods are to work efficiently. Silvanet is a mobile network for the trees: the Internet of Trees. With solar-powered gateways placed at regular intervals the sensors can speak to each other and send their data out of the forest to the people who need to receive it and take action. This doesn’t mean you can use your mobile deep within the forest, but it does mean the forest can ‘talk’ to the outside world and let it know if a fire is starting.
Calculating fire risk levels by considering various sources of information (satellite, weather stations, and potentially local sensors) and then mapping the risk is a complex and tedious task. But it can be automated and enhanced in accuracy and resolution with the help of AI.
If a fire can be detected quickly, then the number of people and the amount of equipment needed can be reduced considerably. Something the size of a bonfire is easily contained by a single team and one truck, but once you have acres of trees aflame, it can require hundreds of people and dozens of fire trucks, plus aerial support.
This can be compounded by accessibility. Even when a fire is spotted in the very early stages, it can take time for the fire crews to reach it. It could be in a remote location, or in a landscape that is difficult to traverse – perhaps vehicles can’t reach the spot. There are many reasons why a fire, even one we know about, can still get ‘out of hand’.
Drones could provide the solution. Fires could be caught quickly, safely and (relatively) cheaply. Dryad has recently received €3.8million EU grant funding to develop drones with this capability and hopes to have the first working units available in the next two to three years. This could mark a genuine game changer in the fight against the destruction of wildfires.
The future
We know that wildfires are increasing in severity and scope, we know that early detection is needed, and we know that we need to get to the fires and extinguish them much earlier than we manage currently. But despite knowing all this, governments around the world are still focusing (and spending millions) on increasing the number of firefighters, trucks, and planes available to tackle the fires. This needs to change.
In the coming years, I expect to see a gradual movement away from this type of spending and instead we’ll see investment in detection and mitigation technology. The use of improved prediction modelling enhanced by a variety of environmental sensors including those for early detection, combined with automated firefighting methods, like autonomous drones, could see us begin to win the war against the destruction caused by severe wildfires.
It requires the political will and financial commitment of governments, but with the costs of wildfires only set to increase, the pressure will be on to cut costs without jeopardising lives and further damaging the environment.
Author: Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO and Co-Founder, Dryad Networks
This article originally appeared in the February 25 magazine issue of IoT Insider.
