Wildfire Detection
FireALERT – Developed and refined over an eight year period, the FireALERT is a self contained wildfire detection sensor. In a monitored area, the FireALERT will pick-up the outbreak or approach of a fire event and then begin to geo-spatially map and track this event in real time. The FireALERT offers a two-fold solution to fire professionals:
- Continuous mon
itoring of critical fire-prone environments so that within seconds of a fire ignition, an alarm is generated. The received alarm will facilitate a rapid response by the dispatch center to mobilize a coordinated, rapid response. This rapid response will reduce the probability of a small fire growing into a devastating wildfire.
- From several miles away, the approach of an established wildfire into a monitored area will automatically generate and send an alarm. As before, the resulting rapid response can now also provide an advanced wildfire warning to the community and residents at risk. This can potentially provide hours of advanced warning, enabling residents to initiate a series of pre-planned defensive actions or a pre-determined evacuation plan thereby averting a possible community wide disaster.
Ambient’s FireALERT addresses both these requirements in a single unit.
- With a detection range of over 6 miles, wildfires approaching a monitored area will trigger an alarm. This will alert the community of the approaching wildfire ahead of its arrival.
- In a monitored area, if a fire the size of a large bush were to suddenly break out one half mile away from a FireALERT, an alarm would immediately be generated. Placing a FireALERT every square mile allows the monitored area to immediately generate an alarm as soon as a small fire ignites.
In less than four minutes, the FireALERT will perform all of the following:
- Scan a full 360 degree horizontal view
- During this scan, lock on to any potential signatures that might be fire related
- Extensively analyze these signature for the specific properties generated by a fire, well before a smoke plume forms
- Reject all signatures that do not provide a correct match
- Immediately generate and send an alarm when the signature matches that of a wildfire
The FireALERT employs Ambient’s patented energy management technology that powers the system from light and stores the energy in a non-battery based storage medium. This provides the system with an operational life approaching 20 years with virtually no maintenance requirements. The FireALERT unit operates on the principal that heated vaporized fuel from a fire is dispersed into the surrounding atmosphere where it immediately reacts with oxygen and a flame chemical reaction takes place. The resulting radiated energy signal possesses a specific spectral pattern. Using a series of detectors in conjunction with narrow band spectral filters, the FireALERT is able to detect the presence of this spectral pattern.
The FireALERT employs an embedded smart processing system that continually analyzes data from these on-board fire detection sensors. It incorporates Ambient’s proprietary and patented Spectral Resonance Imaging (SRI) Scanner technology that scans a 360 degree horizontal field of view looking for highly specific fire signature products. In addition, proprietary and patented algorithms constantly adjust the FireALERT systems performance for changes in the environment, maintaining peak detection sensitivity over the systems full range of operation. This produces a level of data analysis that assures the occurrence of false alarms is reduced to an absolute minimum. As a result, the FireALERT is able to discriminate between fire signatures and those of various interference sources such as blackbody radiation, reflected sunlight or halogen light. This entire fire signature detection and validation process is achieved in less than 4 minutes anywhere within the 360 degree horizontal field of view.
For installations, such as the perimeter of a campground, where a fire pit is deliberately located in the unit’s 360 degree field of view, the FireALERT can be programmed with a blind spot. The FireALERT will continue to monitor the blind spot but will not generate an alarm. If the fire in the fire pit gets out of hand and spreads past the blind spot, the FireALERT will generate an alarm. The detection range achieved by the FireALERT system is shown in figure 4 below.
GPS - The FireALERT series incorporate Global Positioning System (GPS) information. During a fire event, alarm transmissions include the units’ location along with the bearing of the fire.
