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How do we prevent/ treat wild fires effectively?

Image credit: Photo by Deep Rajwar from Pexels

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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni Sep 18, 2020
Can we come up with novel use of technology to prevent and extinguish wildfires?

Wildfires started by nature are difficult to prevent. What policies might lead to the prevention or early containment of wildfires? What are some less obvious ways to contain, control, and extinguish wildfires efficiently?
wildfirefireenvironment
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Creative contributions

Co2 fire extinguishing bombs attached to trees at strategic positions

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Sep 18, 2020
These fire extinguishing balls have become quite popular over the years. It's basically a ball of styrofoam, filled with Co2 powder, and surrounded by fuse wires. In contact with fire, the fuse ignites and detonates the small amount of explosive in the center of the ball. This blows the CO2 powder all over the place, covering the surrounding radius of 2-3 meters (14 - 20 bananas) and puts out all the fire. Such CO2 explosive canisters could be attached to trees at strategic positions. A drone could survey an area and an AI could determine where the optimal spots to place the devices are. Here is a video of these balls in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRJSJPYy2A

Grid of drones to identify fires at the second they start

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Udruga Mladih UMNO
Udruga Mladih UMNO Oct 12, 2020

Next, making water tank stations with RC air tractors every 40 kilometers.

That's it.

I was solo brainstorming this for Australia.
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic10 months ago
Many other fire-prone places also desperately need this, including the coastal areas of your country.
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Udruga Mladih UMNO
Udruga Mladih UMNO10 months ago
Our leaders dont onvest any money in fire prevention. They just fight fires. This is a real solution and its not even that expensive. Also semi automatic.

Making artificial rain clouds

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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni Oct 13, 2020
I found two different ways in which this can be done:
1. Some tests that NASA conducts release large amounts of oxygen and hydrogen in the air. They form clouds and precipitate after some time. 2. Cloud seeding: A seeding agent (dry ice, sodium chloride, silver iodide) is released by airplanes upon clouds. This helps the formation of condensation nuclei (water molecules come together). As these condensation nuclei absorb more water molecules, they become heavier and precipitate.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFqfCDEp6iw

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic10 months ago
Are they releasing oxygen and hydrogen or is it water vapor from a water tower (or river in the case of your video)? During rocket launches, they rapidly release huge amounts of water to dampen audio vibrations which are otherwise too strong and would cause damage to the rocket and the surroundings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuFn8sPFdTs
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic10 months ago
The video gave me another idea:) Imagine a rocket-powered fire extinguisher the magnitude as depicted in your reference video. That would be something:) Attached to a river you could put out a wide area of fire. The range of water vapor could be extended by such fans mounted on trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9W3dJX9ZjM
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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni10 months ago
The guy in the video said hydrogen and oxygen. However, the rocket uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When they are exposed, they react explosively forming water and giving out energy. The energy (heat) converts the water into steam. (Reference: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/hydrogen/hydrogen_fuel_of_choice.html)

Preventing the wildfires using satellites

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J
Juran Oct 14, 2020
If governments and big corporations use satellites to track every step, why they do not use the same technology to detect wildfires? True, there is no Wifi signal or GPS devices that they can trace, but hey, the incredible heat produced by fire, color contrast compared to the green surfaces (forests, meadows, ...), smoke clouds, and others must offer some solution.

As I read, it already exists , but it is imperfect and still in the process of being updated and is expected to further improve early fire detection and reduce false positives. The flaws are that the number of satellites is at the moment not big enough to fully cover the earth's surface all the time. This problem could be solved soon by the Berkeley team .

[1]https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-tracks-wildfires-from-above-to-aid-firefighters-below

[2]https://geog.ucsb.edu/early-warning-fire-detection-satellite-proposed-by-berkeley-scientists/

AI powered identification of potential problem areas and preventative clearance

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Sep 18, 2020
A surveillance drone could map out a problematic area on a regular basis. An AI would then point out potential problem areas. Crews would clear them out and put preventative measures in place

Dig wells, connected to localized sprinker systems, powered by solar panels

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Sep 18, 2020
In beforehand identified problematic areas, dig water wells, surround the area with a battery-powered sprinker system. The battery would be filled by a small photovoltaic array or even a single panel. If wells are not possible, put rainwater collecting cisterns into place and keep them in check. At strategic times preemptively drench the problematic areas. Then refill the cisterns.

Rocket powered, large area fire extinguisher

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Oct 13, 2020
Imagine attaching a rocket-powered fire extinguisher directly to a river or strong enough creek. To extend the range of water vapor, huge fans mounted on trucks could be parked at strategic locations.

Such rocket-engine powered fire extinguishers could be scaled down to fit on a truck. As long as they are parked next to a strong enough body of water they could saturate the area in water vapor (fog) until everything was soaking wet.
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic5 months ago
It turns out something like this was already created:) Hungarian engineers mounted two MiG-21 Jet engines on a Soviet tank to put out oil well fires in 1992. https://youtu.be/-DTrWd2Q9cU
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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni10 months ago
You mean to convert the water into vapor, making it lighter and then blowing it over the are under fire?
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic10 months ago
Yes, essentially saturating a wide area in fog and doing it for long enough for everything to get soaking wet

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General comments

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic4 months ago
Potential new fire detection tech https://youtu.be/gmwmgUpGRJ0
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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni4 months ago
Darko Savic Yes, great find. It seems from the video that people are already working on a device that can convert heat (probably infrared signals) into electricity that can trigger alarms, water hoses, etc. to prevent a widespread fire.

Until that becomes reality, we may use the species of Jewel beetles and many other insect species that rely on burnt wood (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1015734630309) as biosensors to locate wildfires. There has been some development in that area too (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925400501007833).