From Australia to California and Brazil. From Spain, Portugal and Greece to Sweden, Norway and Siberia. The great forest fires have become a global tragedy, closely linked to the devastating effects of climate change, which devastate lives and forests. The situation in Spain, the second southern European country that suffers the most from these claims (only surpassed in recent years by Portugal), is especially serious. Last year alone, about 11,000 fires burned almost 84,000 hectares in Spain, more than triple the number in all of 2018, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

The adverse meteorological situations, with increasingly frequent heat waves and drought, aggravate the conditions of propagation of the flames and extend the period of risk of vulnerable mountains and with insufficient forest management, environmental organizations denounce. Massive fires and fires that occur on five continents and whose virulence is increasing, with dire consequences for people, the environment and the global climate.

Beyond the use of drones or satellite images, new technologies have become an indispensable ally in the fight against flames. Robotics, 5G, big data and artificial intelligence at the service of the planet to prevent, anticipate and act effectively when the first spark is unleashed. Millions of data with accurate information to fight increasingly dangerous, fast and uncontrollable fires. In this context, innovative projects and ideas multiply. Behind many of them are Spanish engineers and startups, with world-class leading proposals and pioneering initiatives that have been exported to other countries.

This is the case, for example, of Wastmote, a wireless sensor platform developed by the Aragonese company Libelium. An electronic device detects the risk of fire by combining several measurement parameters, such as temperature, humidity, ambient pressure and solar radiation, and transmits the information via the Internet. These sensors have been installed this year in different parts of the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, in the Aragonese Pyrenees. In this way, it is possible to know at the moment which areas of the forest are most exposed to a possible fire. Thanks to the Internet of Things, investment in technology at the service of environmental sustainability is one of the greatest legacies that we can contribute to the conservation of natural spaces. Without forgetting that we are acting on resources of great tourist attraction that generate a favorable impact on the economy and local employment , they explain in Libelium.

A worker at the Eberswalde fire control center, Brandenburg (Germany) observes a cloud of smoke on his screen over a forest. .

The experts agree. In the field of prevention, detection and extinction, recovery of burned areas and analysis, new technologies are a treasure. Thanks to very precise mathematical models, big data and artificial intelligence allow us to develop tools and applications to anticipate time and know what is going to happen before anything happens. They also offer greater capacity for action and planning when undertaking extinction work, and are in turn of great help in the reconstruction of forest masses , points out the forestry engineer Jos Ramn Gonzlez.

This is what happens with Wildfire Analyst, a software that provides real-time analysis of the behavior of wildfires. The program simulates the spread of these claims in a few seconds and enables fast and accurate decision making. The system integrates with satellite detection every five minutes and real-time data reading from 80,000 weather stations. In addition, it monitors the vegetation and severity of the fire in collaboration with NASA and Google. In turn, it integrates drone images and uses supercomputing. Every day we simulate 380 million virtual fires in California, computing the possible impacts to people, houses and critical points. This same system is used by the largest American electricity companies to reduce their risk of fires , explains Joaqun Ramrez, CEO of Tecnosylva.

This company from Len has been working in the US for seven years and its technological developments have made it a world reference. Tecnosylva is also responsible for fiResponse, a multiplatform that allows monitoring and managing incidents related to fires. Different organizations and users can use this tool in a synchronized way and share information while the accident occurs. Eight US states already use this device, as do several autonomous communities in Spain.

Man has the last word

Despite all these advances, experts agree that new technologies can never replace the human factor. They should never be an excuse or alibi for inaction or to support the justifications for a bad decision or inadequate management of an emergency, warn Pablo Grriz and Jos Manuel Peribez, members of the Spanish Association for the Fight Against Fire (Aself ). If an automation of decisions is intended without human intervention based on elements taken into account in artificial intelligence, we will be facing a scenario of robotization of decisions and the abandonment of functions with serious consequences, even legal. What no one doubts is that learning and training procedures and techniques based on simulators, tele-training platforms, augmented reality and 3D tools have favored decision-making when dealing with a forest fire.

Here, algorithms and mathematical models are essential. The key is to make the numerically complex visually simple, which helps to quickly understand what is happening and to act more correctly. This is the basis of Wuiview, one of the most innovative projects funded by the European Commission whose aim is to create a platform that helps prevent fires at the urban-forest interface. That is, in those areas where the vegetation of the mountain is in contact with homes, industrial buildings, roads, telephone lines and electricity The end result will be a tool for fire risk analysis based on open source so that it can be used by engineers and architects.

In this kind of virtual 3D laboratory, sophisticated numerical simulation tools are used to study how the combustion of the elements that exist in the forest environment that surrounds the houses and in the buildings themselves begins and progresses. For this we have extracted a specific number of typical situations, lessons learned from fires that have already occurred and on which we have done important forensic investigation work, explains forestry engineer David Caballero. After these situations are rehearsed in the fire laboratory to observe the factors and phenomena that govern them, and finally we proceed to their numerical simulation in three dimensions. This process allows us to see in advance what can happen in the event of a fire , he illustrates. Drones and leading technology based on sensors that emit rays of light are used to build these three-dimensional models.

The list of projects and initiatives that are already underway are almost endless. Robots that see through smoke, drones that transmit maps in real time with georeferenced aerial images, robotic tanks capable of penetrating flames and withstanding high temperatures In the future, technology will increasingly help humans in this task . We will have immediate and visually more intuitive access to data that is relevant. Efficient communication in the event of a fire will allow us to quickly learn about our opportunities for evacuation or confinement. We will be able to see the safest routes, the progress that the front of flames and smoke will have and know if these elements will threaten the roads through which we are going to pass , predicts Caballero. And the means of intervention will more easily control all the elements deployed in these emergency scenarios: population and movement, threatened infrastructure, possible evolution of the weather, expected spread of the fire, possible domino effects A not so distant future in which technology will be the protagonist again.

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Drones, robots and big data: cutting-edge technology against forest fires | Innovation - Explica