Summary & Reader Response Final
According to the article "Drones
Take Their Place on the Cutting Edge of Wildfire Fighting" (Patterson,
2021), though life-saving backpack technology such as drones is not new,
firefighters do not have access to it. As a result, Georgia State University researchers
are working to improve drones to better combat wildfires. Patterson claims that
their drone KHawk is designed to fly autonomously while transmitting weather
data, including forecasts of where the flames will spread next.
Patterson also states, "The U.S.
Department of Interior (DOI) started flying drone missions in 2010 with about
200 total flights." DOI plans to expand the drone fleeting mission and
began the first use of Unmanned Arial System (UAS) for aerial ignition
operations. The fundamental idea behind employing the “intentional ignition
strategy” is to start a fire that burns back towards the main fire line,
eventually starving the flames and putting them out by depriving the main fire
line of adequate fuel to go forward. Drone Amplified, a company based in
Lincoln, Nebraska, developed this IGNIS drone payload system.
Drones and other UAS can be used in many fields,
depending on what type of payload or sensors they are equipped with and their
intended application. This paper seeks to examine the potential advantages of
UAS in locating hot spots, fire management and forestry. Thus, making drones
and other UAS more effective for the fire rescue team and contributing to
reducing the overall damage of forest fires.
In the past few years, the utilization
of artificial intelligence (AI) in drones and small-scale UAS have become
popular in helping to fight forest fires by detecting their hotspots. (Ambrosia
et al., 2003) showed that small-scale unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) could
help monitor wildfires, and this technological innovation could significantly
reduce the cost of wildfire management response. For instance, drones and other
small-scale UAS utilize infrared radiation to help first responders find human
heat signatures and fire hotspots, which indicate where flames are most likely
to spread (Burke et al., 2019). This shows that drones are beneficial for
forest fires that quickly get out of control. This article supports the
argument that drones are able locate hotspots for wildfires.
Research has shown drones are not just
used to fight wildfires; they also manage forest fires, and lately, drones have
been used to assist in prescribed fires. A good example is the IGNIS system,
which is amplified by drones and contains many chemical spheres loaded with
glycol that burst shortly after impacting the ground, lighting a small fire
(Surya, 2020). The idea behind this tactic is that once the fuel has been
burned, it cannot be burned again. Thus, if a grass fire travels in one
direction and the drone starts a fire from that point onwards towards the fire,
there will be no fuel left to burn, and the fire will go out (Liu et al.,
2016), decreasing the fuel load. These drone-based rescue interventions would
eventually make the task of the fire rescue team much more effective and
contribute to reducing the overall damage.
Aside from drones' utility in fire
management, they are also utilized in plant health by planting seeds for
forestry. Following an ice storm that impacted 11 states in the United States
in January 2016, (McElwee, 2021) discovered that West Virginia's Division of
Forestry began using drones to monitor current logging jobs and post-harvest
activities to ensure that best management practices were being followed. The
blizzard destroyed most of the plantations in the cities and had to be
replanted. Routine inspections that once took several hours to complete could
now be done under an hour with a drone, emphasizing another benefit of using
drones.
While there are many advantages to
drones in fire management and forestry, there are also several limitations.
First, is the challenge of equity and probability. No matter how much experts
study using AI to predict fires, technology is still a bright shiny object, and
fires might be more complex than they seem (Edlinger et al., 2019). Moreover,
another challenge is dealing with the different variables that influence fire
behaviour in wildland and urban environments for instance, human behaviour,
ignition sources, weather etc. (Velencoso et al., 2018). Thus, it remains
favourable to use predictive analytics to improve the efficacy of fire
preparedness, prevention, and mitigation remains a good option (Yfantis, 2017).
In conclusion, with various infrastructure developments and more deployment of smart cities, fire detection and extinguishing are becoming a concern for nations. These drone-based rescue interventions would eventually make the task of the fire rescue team much more effective and contribute to reducing the overall damage.
References
Ambrosia, V. G., Wegener, S. S.,
Sullivan, D. V., Buechel, S. W., Dunagan, S. E., Brass, J. A., Stoneburner, J.,
& Schoenung, S. M. (2003). Demonstrating UAV-Acquired Real-Time Thermal
Data over Fires. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 69(4),
391–402. https://doi.org/10.14358/pers.69.4.391
Burke, C., Wich, S., Kusin, K., McAree,
O., Harrison, M., Ripoll, B., Ermiasi, Y., Mulero-PázmányM., & Longmore,
S. (2019). Thermal-Drones as a Safe and Reliable Method for Detecting
Subterranean Peat Fires. Drones, 3(1), 23.
https://doi.org/10.3390/drones3010023
Edlinger, R., Zauner, G., & Zauner,
M. (2019). Hazmat label recognition and localization for rescue robots in
disaster scenarios. Electronic Imaging, 2019(7),
463–461463–466. https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2470-1173.2019.7.iriacv-463
Liu, P., Yu, H., Cang, S., &
Vladareanu, L. (2016). Robot-assisted smart firefighting and
interdisciplinary perspectives. 2016 22nd International Conference on
Automation and Computing (ICAC).
https://doi.org/10.1109/iconac.2016.7604952
McElwee, E. (2021, December 8). Drones
Use in Forestry 2021 https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/24060/Drone%20Use%20in%20Forestry_McElwee_20211208.pdf?sequence=1.
Dukespace.
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/24060/Drone%20Use%20in%20Forestry_McElwee_20211208.pdf?sequence=1
Patterson, T. (2021, October 7). Drones
Take Their Place on the Cutting Edge of Wildfire Fighting. FLYING Magazine.
https://www.flyingmag.com/drones-wildfire-fighting/
Surya, L. (2020, October 10). Fighting
fire with AI: Using deep learning to help predict wildfires in the US.
Research Gate.
https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=025078121121077079086103064028102009116008031085056044126102097009101074075088126065033020049102118033018088017122124067093104105041060022013118093117074109102000066006050071071103009003124081127116083085064123084125100120104121005081121015097091105111&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
Velencoso, M. M., Battig, A., Markwart,
J. C., Schartel, B., & Wurm, F. R. (2018). Molecular Firefighting—How
Modern Phosphorus Chemistry Can Help Solve the Challenge of Flame Retardancy.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 57(33), 10450–10467.
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201711735
Yfantis, E. A. (2017, October 5). An
Autonomous UAS with AI for Forest Fire Prevention, Detection, and Real Time
Advice and Communication To... ResearchGate; unknown.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321290336_An_Autonomous_UAS_with_AI_for_Forest_Fire_Prevention_Detection_and_Real_Time_Advice_and_Communication_To_and_Among_Firefighters
Thanks for working on this.
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