A low-cost weather/situation monitor for wildland firefighter safety

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A low-cost weather/situation monitor for wildland
firefighter safety

• Jason Faulring
• Robert Kremens
• Rochester Institute of Technology
• Colin Hardy
• USDA Rocky Mountain Research Station Firelab

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The weather/situation monitor came out of the
NASA funded FIRES program that has broad
scientific goals
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Several generations of fire monitoring devices
have been built or are being designed

• Generation I Autonomous Fire Detector fire
  detection and position location in a compact
  inexpensive package as a fire alarm. Radio voice
  reporting of alarm condition.
• Generation II Data logger for ground temperature
  measurements, fire radiant flux and weather
  parameters (wind speed, wind direction, humidity,
  temperature)
• Generation III Radio linked data as in Gen II
  plus RF video channel (NIR or visible), incident
  light (9 total data channels plus video) (Under
  development, to be deployed Spring 2004)

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Generation 1 devices were tested fully but not
deployed on wildland / prescribed fires

• Unit is GPS aware so that it may be deployed
  anywhere
• Integral radio transmitter with voice synthesizer
  transmits alert on detection of fire
• Thermistor used to detect rapid temperature rise

• Proof of concept device, never deployed in an
  actual situation
• Minimal space, power and price optimizations

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Generation II devices have been deployed
successfully on fires

• This unit combines and extends unique features
  and capabilities of several very expensive units
  now used by the FS
• Remote weather station(RAWS) 12,000
• IR radiometers 1500 each
• Alarm/sentry not available
• Radio reporting of data not available
• Low cost 300 vs gtgt10,000 for commercial
  units
• Can be considered expendable

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In-fire weather is critical to modeling efforts
and firefighter safety
Under 250 so burn-over is OK Measures Wind
Speed, direction Relative humidity Air
temperature Ground/fuel temperature Can record,
transmit data via voice or data link, or transmit
alarms on lookout conditions. Low cost allows
a large number (10) of weather locations to be
measured A- 70 (unit qty.) wind speed/direction
sending head B Data acquisition box (RH, 4
ground temperatures) Transmitter unit mounts
on weather pole
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Generation III devices will have full radio TX/RX
capability and will be even less expensive and
more compact

• Major revision and change in architecture
• Goal optimize size, power, price and usability
• Move to a larger, more flexible processor with
  more features
• New development environment speeds prototyping
  enhances functionality
• Upgraded analog signal processing daughter board
  in production
• New motherboard design under way, should be in
  production in the Spring of 2004

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Generation III description / block diagram / costs

• Utilizing an Atmel ATMEGA128 cheaper (16),
  more I/O more memory
• Chipcon CC1000 fully programmable radio modem
  5.00 per part and with a 20 amplifier high
  power links can be established
• Moving to compact flash based storage more
  storage, cheaper universally accepted and used
• Basic to assembler compiler is feature rich for
  rapidly integrating processor with just about any
  sensor imaginable

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We obtained data at two fires this summer using
our weather/situation monitors (Gen II)

• Cooney Ridge Complex fire, Montana wildfire
  27,000 acres
• Joint experiments with USMC RMSC, UM, UI, others.
• Measured weather and thermal flux data
• Continuous over flights with FireMapper camera
• Ground base MWIR using CE camera system
• Ecological, biological and plot survey performed
  by RMSC and UI
• Post burn evaluation by UI and USFS
• Tenderfoot Research Forest, Lewis and Clark NF
  prescribed burn 100 acres
• AS ABOVE

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We measured the surface thermal flux and kinetic
temperature in addition to fire weather parameters

• Used thermopile to measure surface flux for our
  remote sensing efforts
• Basically a disposable device (60)
• Data recorded by logger
• Thermocouples previously deployed at Albany Pine
  Bush TNC prescribed burn
• Wind speed, direction using inexpensive weather
  vane on lightweight tripod
• RH/Temperature sensor MUCH better than Kestral
  (compared to sling hygrometer)

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We finally deployed on the Cooney ridge fire on
August 30.

• Almost all the desired experiments were
  performed
• Continuous aerial over flights (5 minute period
  for 3 hours)
• In-fire Weather (humidity, wind speed, wind
  direction, air temp, ground surface temperature,
  thermal flux (0.5 10 mm integrated) at 20
  second sampling rate
• Fire videography using witness markers (RMSC)
• Total radiant and total thermal flux (RMSC)
• Plot characteristics, before and after fire
• Fuel loading
• Plant types and populations
• Fuel consumption
• Fuel moisture and size distribution
• Georeferencing
• Ground-mounted MWIR camera with still exposures
  (15 second sample rate) and video

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We are continuing development of relevant
technology for fire detection, fire ecology and
fire management

• Enhanced capability and radio transmission
  upgrades
• Develop networking capabilities amongst multiple
  units
• Enhanced sensor capability
• Incident light, multi-band flux
• Stride towards low power consumption for enhanced
  battery life
• Low cost for statistical relevance
• Up to 50 units deployed at a single fire (NSF
  funding, Coen, Vodacek, et al)

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