Near real-time fire alert system in South Africa

Abstract

We present a design case study of a near-real time alert system warning of vegetation fires that threaten to disrupt electricity flow along power transmission lines in South Africa. Fire is one of the main causes of outages on South Africa's extensive power grid. For Eskom (South Africa's largest electricity company), knowing where and when these fires occur saves money, resources and time. The system was primarily designed to provide the locations of vegetation fires, detected from satellite data, to the mobile phones of field supervisors via SMS (short message service). The system adapts an existing desktopaccessible internet application to provide fire alerts to nonexpert users via mobile phones. It demonstrates how usability and access to needed information is enhanced by changing the output to a mobile service.