The FireALERT-DCS System

CURRENT RESIDENTIAL DETECTION/SUPPRESSION PROBLEMS
Currently, for the homeowner living in areas at high risk of wildfires, there are no fully automated wildfire protection systems.
Existing fire detection and alarm systems are designed for interior use in urban areas. They are powered by AC and are designed to detect interior fires in residential or commercial structures, communicating the address of the fire to the responsible Fire District’s Central Receiving and Dispatch Center. Due to the availability of the urban transportation infrastructure, fire crews can generally arrive at the fire scene in less than four minutes from the generation of a fire alarm. Such rapid response to urban fires minimizes loss of life and property damage.
However, in the wildland/urban interface, the area where forests and grasslands border urban development, fires can develop unnoticed and grow rapidly due to the vast amounts of built-up biomass-fuel. In these high fire risk areas, fire crews face the challenge of dividing their resources between a) fighting the spread of the fire and b) trying to protect individual homes. Often during such wildfires, water, power and phone utilities are inadequate or may fail altogether. Narrow winding roads leading to threatened homes are often difficult or nearly impossible for fire crews to traverse. Under these dangerous conditions, firefighters are often putting themselves at grave risk to try to protect homes that may be difficult or impossible to save from the fire.

An ever increasing number of new residential developments are being built in the high fire risk wildland / urban interface areas. With the limited firefighting resources available today, especially during the heart of the fire season, the firefighting community has recently developed policies that place an increasing responsibility on homeowners to protect their homes. The FireALERT-DCS System provides, for the first time, a fully automated solution to homeowners that enables them to mitigate the risk of wildfires to their home, even when they are away for a few hours or for many weeks.

THE FireALERT-DCS SOLUTION
The FireALERT-DCS is a standalone, roof mounted, Wildfire Detection, Communication and Suppression activation control system that does not require AC power or telephone to operate correctly. It utilizes Ambient’s patented advanced energy management technology that powers the system even when AC power becomes unreliable or unavailable during a wildfire event. Upon detection and validation of a wildfire event, the FireALERT-DCS System will activate a compatible, owner installed, self-contained suppression system that operates independently from the homes utility supplies, such as AC power and water that typically fail during a wildfire event. This suppression system would disperse either a foam, a gel or other fire retardant material over the structure and its perimeter, protecting the property from an oncoming wildfire event.

The FireALERT-DCS is powered by an amorphous photovoltaic module using Ambient’s “Mid Door” technology. Extremely low light levels to full one sun light levels are efficiently converted to electrical power and stored in a non-battery based “Supercapacitor” medium. This affords the system an operational life-cycle in excess of 20 years that is virtually maintenance free. This energy storage medium is extremely robust and will provide reliable system energy over extremes of temperature, pressure and shock.
The FireALERT-DCS will detect and validate a 4 foot by 4 foot wildfire signature at a distance of ¼ mile, hence protecting an area of 160 acres. Larger wildfire signatures can be detected over considerably greater distances. This process of detection of a wildfire signature starts with the utilization of Ambient’s patented advanced infra-red scanning sensor technology. As employed in the FireALERT-DCS, this scanning infra-red sensor provides the system with a circular horizontal 360° field of view.

Incorporating Ambient’s proprietary Spectral Resonance Imaging (SRI) pattern recognition software algorithms, the FireALERT-DCS System’s embedded smart processing is then able to analyze the sensor data, differentiating the wildfire signature from other thermal phenomena.
This entire wildfire signature detection and validation process is achieved in less than 2 minutes. The integrity of the data analysis assures that the occurrence of false alarms is reduced to an absolute minimum.

The FireALERT-DCS System incorporates Global Positioning System (GPS) capability that, during a fire event, provides the location of the homeowner’s property and the bearing of the fire to the responsible Fire District’s Central Receiving and Dispatch Center via an on-board Terrestrial Spread spectrum Radio or a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Modem.

The FireALERT-DCS System’s rapid communication of the wildfire alarm to the responsible Fire District’s Central Receiving and Dispatch Center can dramatically enhance the effectiveness of firefighting community, making an early response by the local fire department practical, should that department have the resources available to support the homeowner.

OPERATION OF A FireALERT-DCS SYSTEM WITH A TYPICAL FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM
The FireALERT-DCS is designed to activate a compatible, owner installed, self-contained fire suppression system of gel, foam or other fire retardant in order that the combined detection, communication and suppression system can operate totally independent of all local water, AC power and telephone utilities. A compatible FireALERT-DCS activated fire suppression system consists of:

•  compressed nitrogen/air storage tanks
•  a nitrogen/compressed air fire warning siren
•  a nitrogen/compressed air pneumatic door closer; window fire-shutter closer; vent closer system
•  a water tank
•  a gel, foam or fire retardant tank
•  a compressed nitrogen/air driven pump
•  a gel or foam additive mixer/proportioner
•  a gel, foam or fire retardant application system of spray heads and piping

The following is a brief overview of how the automated FireALERT-DCS would activate a compatible fire suppression system.

1. Detection - A roof mounted FireALERT-DCS detects an oncoming wildfire approaching the home.

DETECTION OF APPROACHING WILDFIRE EVENT

2. Communication – Upon detection and validation of the approaching wildfire, The FireALERT-DCS communicates the GPS coordinates or property address to the responsible Fire District’s Central Receiving and Dispatch Center Fire Station using terrestrial or satellite communication. The communications system would be tailored to the nature of the terrain and the distances involved.

COMMUNICATION OF WILDFIRE EVENT TO SATELLITE

COMMUNICATION FROM SATELLITE TO CENTRAL RECEIVING AND DISPATCH

3. Activation – Upon detection and validation of the approaching wildfire, the FireALERT-DCS System would activate a compatible, owner installed, suppression system.:

ACTIVATION OF A COMPATIBLE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM
PROTECTION OF HOME

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION   

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