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Wireless sensors for wildfire monitoring
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2005
Year
Sensor NetworksMeteorologyEnvironmental MonitoringEarth ScienceFlame DetectionEngineeringWireless Sensor SystemFire DetectionGeographyRemote SensingFire ResearchPrescribed Test BurnsWireless SensorsSensor SuiteFire ModelingMonitoring SystemSan Francisco
The study presents a wireless sensor system for wildfire monitoring and reports field test results from prescribed burns near San Francisco. The system uses GPS‑equipped wireless motes that collect temperature, humidity, and pressure, transmit data to a base station and database server, and provide access via a web application. Field tests showed the system reliably detected flame fronts, recording temperature rises up to 5 °C/s, pressure drops of up to 25 mbar, and humidity decreases, with maximum temperatures of 95 °C and minimum humidity of 9 %.
We describe the design of a system for wildfire monitoring incorporating wireless sensors, and report results from field testing during prescribed test burns near San Francisco, California. The system is composed of environmental sensors collecting temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure with an on-board GPS unit attached to a wireless, networked mote. The motes communicate with a base station, which communicates the collected data to software running on a database server. The data can be accessed using a browser-based web application or any other application capable of communicating with the database server. Performance of the monitoring system during two prescribed burns at Pinole Point Regional Park (Contra Costa County, California, near San Francisco) is promising. Sensors within the burn zone recorded the passage of the flame front before being scorched, with temperature increasing, and barometric pressure and humidity decreasing as the flame front advanced. Temperature gradients up to 5 C per second were recorded. The data also show that the temperature slightly decreases and the relative humidity slightly increases from ambient values immediately preceding the flame front, indicating that locally significant weather conditions develop even during relatively cool, slow moving grass fires. The maximum temperature recorded was 95 C, the minimum relative humidity 9%, and barometric pressure dropped by as much as 25 mbar.