These stories can be fairly hard to find. It turns out that megabucks of US funding, plus venture capital, is going into new wildfire tech, so we can expect transformative change in suppression capabilities.
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Question: when I heard that the CIA has a venture capital branch called In-Q-Tel, I wondered if the Forest Service or Interior have one (a venture capital branch that helps develop technology). Do they have one and I haven’t heard? Because if wildfire tech is increasingly designed by military contractors, what other military or spy-ish ways of operating might the FS and Interior explore?
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Next Generation Fire System-
Who: NOAA, CSU and U of Wisconsin
Technology: satellites plus AI, plus human review.
Story: Colorado Sun here.
The Boulder office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration watches satellites in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above North America. Those satellites take detailed ground photos every 30 seconds. No human reviewer could possibly keep up.
An AI software layer, however, can instantly alert NOAA and weather officials to a change in infrared wavelength sensors on an area as small as an acre. An alert goes out to local National Weather Service offices, who in turn take advantage of recently updated NOAA communication protocols to loop in state and local firefighting leaders.
“It’s the force multiplier,” said Michael Pavolonis, wildland fire program manager for NOAA in Boulder. “Humans are very good at picking out new heat signatures in these satellite images associated with emerging fires. But humans can’t digest all of that imagery coming in at that rate. It’s just a … fire hose of data.”
NOAA is decidedly not selling the AI tool as an endgame, all-powerful firefighter.
“AI does spot some fires earlier than other sources. Not every time,” Pavolonis said. “It’s a piece of the puzzle. All of these technologies have to come together and be interoperable, and that gives you the best intelligence. So what we’re trying to do is maximize the value of this particular information source so that it’s complementary with other technologies.”
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Rain and Stanford
Who: Rain
Technology– earth-based smoke spotting cameras (existing network) autonomous uncrewed aircraft.
Thanks to The Hotshot Wakeup for this one! Here’s a link to the company’s website.
Here’s info on their system.
Every wildfire starts small
This simulation highlights the fire risk of a region without and with prepositioned, Rain-equipped aircraft, illustrating the difference it makes to strategically station autonomous firefighting aircraft that can be launched as soon as an ignition is detected.
The Rain Wildfire Mission Autonomy System includes software components for wildfire mission management, path planning, fire perception, suppression strategy, suppressant targeting, and subcomponents for integrating with aircraft autonomy systems, infrared and visual spectrum cameras, inertial navigation, GPS and other sensors, and automated suppressant deployment equipment.
This technology uses existing cameras, and its unique approach is the use of “automated suppressant deployment equipment” which means you don’t need people with fire training to get there quickly. Here’s what I’ve noticed through time:
1. There are more people in the woods
2. Many are not trained in fire (even what we learned to take care of ABC fires in the past)
3. Many places are hard/slow to get to from wherever fire-trained people are stationed.
4. Many decisions are made to back off due to human safety concerns, which would not a problem with automated equipment, thereby putting more tools in the toolbox.
It seems to me that if this approach works, the ability to do initial attack would be increased greatly, which could have follow-on kinds of changes. It could go either way. I would think that either
a) the ability to do successful IA almost 100% if the time would make MF rarer and heighten the use of PF.
b) they could automate all decisions, including MF.
c) more water, less retardant?
d) with automated, fewer retardant accidents?
Or possibly other outcomes.. ideas?
Here’s a link to the 7 news story.
That’s because a percentage of the water dropped on wildfires may not make to the target. With intense heat and high winds, it can be blown off course, or into a mist, that simply disappears into the air.
To help solve the problem, Rain ultimately turned to engineering students at Stanford University. Team members Chris Copans and Kristie Park say the process began with some out of the box brainstorming.
“What if we try to do something like water, but boba balls or something like that? What if we did something like the consumable water packets that runners use in marathons? Can we use like a snow cone machine or something like that?” says Park.
What they came up with were transportable, biodegradable, highly controllable, water pellets. Made with a machine normally used to wrap food snacks. After testing them with shake tables and pressure gauges, it was time for the big drop, off a 32-foot fire tower.
“We loaded payloads of our pellets as approximately 25 each in a trapdoor bucket extend it out the side of the tower, and then we released them and tracked the dispersion of those pellets as they fell,” says Copans.
He says the beta tests were a success.
Back at headquarters, engineers at Rain are continuing to perfect the software that could ultimately help guide the Black Hawk helicopters to their target. And perhaps someday deliver a payload of Stanford water pellets or similar technology.
For Max Brodie is would be the fulfillment of a mission driven by watching the effects of a destructive wildfire as a child.
“Then going into the 2020 wildfire season where the skies turned orange. I was convinced that this was the right time to build this technology and that we could do it,” explains Brodie.
An autonomous airforce designed to revolutionize the way we fight wildfires. And besides reaching them quickly, engineers at Rain believe their autonomous strategy could be safer, keeping humans away from the dangerous epicenters and rugged terrain.
Given my experience with genetically-engineered organisms and the environment, I would only ask technology developers to imagine writing an EIS for the deployment of the technology before they choose the coating for the boba balls.
I am sure with this amount of USG and venture capital funding, there are many other technologies out there. These two are from local news. Maybe someone has rounded them all up somewhere? Please add any others in the comments.
There are excellent TAMM type review of integrated technologies, emerging technologies and case studies in Europe and Asia that offer insightful understanding of the state-of-the-art and applications. One needs to look world wide instead of simply relying on US publications.
Please supply links.. thanks!!!
Sharon:
There are many sources of current information comparing early wildfire detection technologies. Many of the technologies are contained in comprehensive wildfire assessment and management reports especially in Europe. Some cover a few of the eleven primary technologies, for example:
Early Wildfire Detection Technologies in Practice—A Review Ankita Mohapatra * and Timothy Trinh Computer Engineering Program, California State University, Fullerton, CA 92831, USA * Correspondence: [email protected] 2022.
Partheepan, S.; Sanati, F.; Hassan, J. Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Bushfire Management: Challenges and Opportunities. Drones 2023, 7, 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/ drones7010047
A theoretical framework for improved fire suppression by linking management models with smart early fire detection and suppression technologies Li Meng1 · Jim O’Hehir1 · Jing Gao1 · Stefan Peters1 · Anthony Hay2 Received: 9 October 2023 / Accepted: 18 January 2024 © The Author(s) 2024
Forest Fire Surveillance Systems: A Review of Deep Learning Methods. 2024.
Azlan Saleh a, Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley a, Hazimah Haspi Harun a, Francis Gaudreault b, Ian Davison b, Martin Spraggon 2024.
Twenty-first century technology of combating wildfire D K De et al 2019 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 331 012015
I will check my 7,500 documents library and add more if needed.
AL
This is great information! Would you like to write a post summarizing what you think are the most likely techs for implementation in the next 20 years?
My point was only to say “if you are saying wildfires are going to get worse in the future” a factor that needs to be considered is improvement in wildfire technologies.
Sure I can write a review, although my expectation is we will continue to see integrated approaches blending technologies where it makes sense to optimize their benefits and avoid over-reliance on one technology. We are living in a rapidly transforming period where advancements in technology, science and engineering are creating cooperative all lands based opportunities for fusions of wildfire detection and fire suppression approaches that reflect current thinking about decision making frameworks and risk assessments. AL
“It seems to me that if this approach works the ability to do initial attack would be increased greatly . . . almost 100%, etc.” Guess what? Every year the initial attack success rate is about 98%. Isn’t that close enough for government work? Do you seriously think that some new mousetrap is going to move the needle from 98% to “almost 100%?” We’re already there, for goodness sakes.
As for new mousetraps, I’ve become the go-to place for every guy (it’s always guys) promoting his latest “FIGHT FIRES BETTER!” invention. Don’t get me wrong, I think these are all well-intentioned people, and I’d be the last to gainsay their creativity.
So, I seek your help crowd-sourcing the latest proposal my in-box received earlier this week:
[My] idea arose from the following observation: fighting a wildfire is analogous to a military engagement, with the wildfire the enemy, and the firefighters on the ground analogous to the infantry, and the airdrops from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft analogous to action from the air force, but there is nothing analogous to the artillery! Therefore, to serve as artillery, I proposed the use of electromagnetic catapults to launch containers of water at the wildfires. This extra source of water should result in wildfires being extinguished more quickly, thereby reducing the destruction and loss of life (including wildlife) that they cause. Importantly, it would also lead to a reduction in the CO2 they pour into the atmosphere, that in turn contributes to global warming, that in turn leads to an increase in the number of wildfires, so that one has a positive feedback loop that eventually leads to an exponential growth of wildfires. A description of the proposal is in my recent paper:
Tangherlini, F. R. (2021) A New Method of Fighting Wildfires. Open Journal of Safety Science and Technology, 11, 27-33.
However, despite the numerous benefits associated with the catapult proposal, I have been unable to get anyone (including the U.S. Forest Service) to get an R&D program going so that one can test the idea. Thus, I hope FSEEE, after reading the above paper, FSEEE will find the idea of sufficient interest so as to undertake to get, either the Oregon government, or business leaders, to initiate R&D on the proposal. If it proves successful, as I believe it will, it will become a valuable weapon in fighting wildfires that increases the safety of the firefighters and the environment.
What do you think?
Anon, I don’t understand what you mean. Would you please use words?
We’re having a disconnect here, Andy. Maybe it’s the same as the “number of escaped prescribed” tiny.. versus acres impacted by escaped prescribed (lots of difference, if you are in New Mexico).
For example, the Park Fire is at 426,528 acres, and if someone had gotten on the burning car that started it…
Maybe it’s different definitions of “initial attack success”?
Turns out boba balls are made from tapioca. I’m not sure how effective they would be (unless large and hollow and filled with, say, water), but would their use actually require a full-blown EIS? Let’s not get too bureaucratic; try an Environmental Assessment (EA) instead, if there’s an actual serious need: much cheaper, faster and less bureaucratic.
JB
They are filled with the water, if you read the story the idea is that water splashes everywhere between the helicopter and the target. They asked the engineers to work on how to get water more precisely hitting the fire target.
I heard several very amusing ideas. *smirk*
1) Build big pipelines from the ocean, with huge pumps, to push saltwater to automated sprinklers installed in our forests.
2) Install millions of lightning rods in our forests.
Just read this this AM- Quarry Fire, Colorado. Folks I know were on pre-evac for this one.. given the high population density in the area, this one was fairly scary.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/08/07/quarry-fire-jefferson-county-contained/