Project no. Fp6-018505 Project Acronym fire paradox

4.5.3Training

Consequently, the General Directorate of Civil Protection and its regional offices in the autonomous communities organise training courses designed for the different agents involved in forest fire fighting. In this way, volunteers can receive training in surveillance and detection of forest fires, driving four-wheel-drive vehicles, transmissions, etc. Likewise, joint training activities are conducted with the Civil Guard, the competent regional or local police, and forest or environmental rangers with responsibilities and competencies in this area.

The Autonomous Regions also organise training courses for personnel comprising the defence against forest fires contingent. Thus, Galicia gives these courses to all workers who make up the summer campaign group, both contract personnel and permanent and temporary workers.

4.5.4Detection Systems

Source: Forest Fires Regional Plans (Aragón, Andalusia and Balearic Islands) and Surveillance Local Plan (Barcelona).

Figure 25 - Some examples of detection system distribution

1. 
   Traditional methods
   

Surveillance posts may be towers, huts or shelters that are spread out over the whole territory, especially in areas where forest resources are of high socioeconomic and/ or ecological value, or in areas with a high risk of fires.

This is recognised as the basic and essential system, although as a general rule a suitability study of the existing fixed points network is required, especially in the autonomous regions with more rugged topography. This is the case of Aragón: an optimisation process of its surveillance posts, supported by GIS tools, has been ongoing since 2003.

Figure 26 – Lookout tower in “Parque de la Casa de Campo” (Ayuntamiento de Madrid). Author: J. Solana

- MOBILE GROUND SURVEILLANCE

Mobile surveillance is of maximum importance in areas where, owing to the rough terrain or the impossibility of building fixed posts (structural problems, poor accessibility, etc.), territorial monitoring is diminished or non-existent.

Normally, surveillance routes are covered in four-wheel-drive vehicles, which may be fitted out with a small water container to enable a first attempt at controlling a fire.

Figure 27 – Surveillance vehicle from the Barcelona District. Author: C. Montiel.

- AIR SURVEILLANCE

The high cost of contracting flying hours requires a prior study of surveillance routes. In Spain, planes with capacity for some 3,100 litres are also employed for surveillance missions, thus enabling a first attempt at putting out a fire after detection.

Figure 28 - Coordination and Observation Airplane from the 2007 fire campaign. Detail right: image acquisition system (infrared an visible). Detail left: thermal image (infrared). Original photos by Dirección General para la Biodiversidad, Área de Defensa contra Incendios Forestales.

2. 
   New technologies
   

1. 
   GROUND CAMERAS
   

ii) REMOTE SENSING

Since 2003, a product developed by the Remote Sensing Laboratory at the University of Valladolid (LATUV), called hotspots, has been used for fire detection in Spain. This product is obtained from low resolution pictures such as those of the sensor MODIS, which are received with a different daily frequency, once as a minimum and twice as a rule.

iii) RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

• 
  Remote sensing with satellite images
  

One of the first projects developed along these lines was the REMFIRESAT (Real-Time Emergency Management of Forest Fires via Satellite) programme in 2002. Among the results is the LATUV hotspots product. The findings underwent testing during the 2003 campaign in Castile and León and produced very positive results. The NOD (Near Operational Demonstration of the Use of Space Techniques for Fire Risk Management) project contributed a number of technological improvements and focused on GIS products.

Subsequently, the DEMOBIRD project emerged to validate the use of a high-resolution instrument for the purpose of locating fires and justifying the construction of this type of instrument for this application. Data from the BIRD (Bi-spectral Infrared Detection Microsatellite) satellite of the German Aerospace Centre in Galicia were used and encompassed the summer 2003 fire campaign.

Subsequently, the ESA decided to launch the RISK-EOS project within the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) programme; this was designed to provide Europe with an earth observation space infrastructure devoted to supporting natural disaster management, among which forest fires are included. The hotspots product is in the refinement stage and is being delivered in Spain, through a collaboration agreement, to the Extremadura and Andalusia regions during the current 2007 campaign.

We have seen the current drawbacks of remote sensing as an early fire detection system. In order to address these problems, satellites with instruments specifically designed for this task are necessary but as of yet we do not have these instruments. A design prototype of all these systems with specific characteristics was already developed in the FUEGO programme. This programme, which was designed by INSA for the ESA, consisted of a constellation of 12 satellites for early detection and monitoring of forest fires, however the system remained in the analysis stage and was not implemented.

At the end of 2005, the Ministry for the Environment contracted the first operational service. The reception of AVHRR-NOAA, MODIS-EOS Aqua/Terra and SEVIRI-MSG data is effected by means of aerials situated in the data processing centre (LATUV) and the products, including the detection of hotspots (with the attributes of reliability, temperature, location), are available on a server.

• 
  Air surveillance with unmanned vehicles
  

Figure 29 - Fire surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles.

Similarly, the Navigation, Communications and Observation Tools Aerostatic System is being developed, a system based on aerostatic platforms which are capable of obtaining high resolution thermal pictures with an autonomy of several days. The current prototype, carried airborne by a large balloon, will operate from 2009 from a height of 4,000 metres. In addition, it is proposed to obtain a prototype that will operate from an altitude of 20 km and which can remain operational for several months.

The Public Environmental Management Company of Castile-La Mancha, for its part, in collaboration with Indra company, presented a very advanced prototype of its UAV Surveillance System in 2007.

• 
  Sensor networks
  

The system is currently being tested in Monte de El Pardo (Madrid) and in Doñana (Andalusia). These are the advantages considered on this system:

• 
  Alarm automation and management;
  
• 
  Not affected by bad weather conditions;
  
• 
  Associated costs are much lower in comparison with other solutions;
  
• 
  Sensors do not need a direct line of vision between them
  
• 
  Laser detection
  

A prototype of this anti-fire laser has already been developed and has obtained low response time; it is capable of detecting columns of smoke from the moment the fire starts with the advantage that this system can detect these fires in an area of 112 square kilometres. Advantages presented by this system:

• 
  Fast and totally accurate;
  
• 
  Wide system field of vision;
  
• 
  Cost of application and maintenance is not high;
  
• 
  The system detects smoke
  

• 
  Location of centre by panoramic photographs
  

It is, therefore, a simple tool, easy to learn and to use, which enables the exact location of a fire to be calculated from a single observation.

In 2006 the Fire Centre Location System (Ubifoc) of the Valencian Community became operative; this is also based on panoramic photographs treated with photogrammetric techniques, by means of which the fire centre may be located with an accuracy of within 5 metres.

• 
  Lightning detection
  

That is how the Lightning Detection Programme emerged in 1999 as a pioneering experiment in El Valle de Ayora (Valencian Community). The INM data is sent by e-mail and a unit proceeds to the exact spot with the aid of a GPS. Once there, an infrared camera is used to sweep the areas where lightning has struck.

Aragón also has a lightning location system, and Castile and León has had its own system since 2006, which is of higher quality in terms of spatial and temporal resolution.

• 
  Other technologies applied
  

• 
  Implementation of GPS
  
• 
  Mobile communication via GPRS
  
• 
  Implementation of Mobile Monitoring Programmes
  
• 
  Transmission of pictures by mobile phone and microwaves
  
• 
  Surveillance Vehicles and First Attempt to Extinguish (VVPA)
  
• 
  Geographical Information Systems
  
• 
  Mobile Meteorology and Transmission Units (UMMT)