anh728
May 18, 20222 min
Updated: Nov 1, 2022
We had the chance to participate in a prescribed burning in Guadalajara (Northern Madrid, Spain) and test the Silvanet Wildfire Sensors under real-world conditions.
Prescribed burning is a method of using a controlled fire on the ground of the forest to clear the fuel (brushes, needles, etc) and thus reduce the threat of a real wildfire to spread to the crowns. This method was originally used by indigenous people (e.g. in the USA) and is gaining traction as a method to prevent megafires which are increasingly threating our forests.
To prepare for the burn, we placed 10 sensors and one Silvanet Border Gateway in the target 100x100m woodland area.
Silvanet Border Gateway
Next, the fire fighters of Infocam - the local wildfire suppression service - started the fire from the top of the hill and then down towards the slope. Silvanet performed extremely well: within just 5 minutes of the fire starting, the first sensor triggered and the alarm was raised.
Our partner - Infocam
Infocam fire fighters starting the burn
It was a very dramatic scene, much bigger than any other fire tests that we have done before. We tried to capture the process using our drone to get a better understanding of the spread of the fire and extent of the smoke generated.
The fire burnt an area of 100x100m (1 ha)
Aerial view captured using our drone
During the burning, one of our sensors placed in the area took a serious beating by the fire. However, when we checked it out, we were amazed to find that this brave little sensor had managed to survive and was still transmitting data back to our cloud-based analytics platform. We will keep that resilient sensor as a trophy and a sign of courage under fire!
A sensor was burned by the fire, but survived
We would like to thank our partners STIHL and Infocam for enabling us run the first real-world test successfully. The team is excited to see how well our Silvanet operated in this real-time fire. Dryad has successfully delivered a quick and effective fire detection system as promised. We hope to deploy our Silvanet widely to protect our precious forest for our planet, and for our future generations.