Like a "electronic nose" could help fight forest fires

London ( Business) — In the summer of 2021, wildfires caused an “unprecedented disaster” on the Italian island of Sardinia, burning more than 28,000 hectares of land and displacing thousands of people from their homes.

Almost half of the affected land burned in a single, catastrophic fire that affected the Montiferru region, near the west coast of the island. Now, Montiferru is one of twelve forest areas around the world that are testing a new “ultra-early” warning system for forest fires, developed by a German company called Dryad, after nymphs from Greek mythology who live in symbiosis. with the trees.

Avoiding the development of even a small part of forest fires would have great benefits. Climate change is making wildfires more intense, with the number of extreme wildfires projected to increase by up to 14% by 2030.

Apart from the billions of dollars of damage they cause in losses, the particles and chemicals they produce are strong pollutants and in 2021 forest fires released a record 1.76 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, which is equivalent to more than double Germany’s annual CO2 emissions.

Existing early warning systems are based on visual detection of smoke, either through satellite imagery, cameras on the ground, or human observers. But these systems are too slow, according to Dryad co-founder and CEO Carsten Brinkschulte.

“To generate smoke that rises above the treetops and can be seen from, say, 10 to 12 miles away, the underlying fire has to be very large – there might already be half a football field burning. Also, if you add the time it takes firefighters to get to the scene, it may be too long to extinguish it.”

an electronic nose

Dryad, which has raised 13.9 million euros (about US$12.2 million), aims to reduce the detection time of forest fires and identify them in the slow combustion phase, that is, when there is not yet an open flame. , usually within the first 60 minutes.

To do this, the company designed a sensor powered by solar energy and equipped with a gas detector. “It can detect hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds: it can basically smell fire,” says Brinkschulte. “Think of it as an electronic nose that is attached to a tree.”

Once the sensor detects a fire, it sends a signal over a wireless network using a built-in antenna. The signal is then transmitted to more complex devices and transmitted to the Internet via satellite and 4G. Finally, the information is sent to forest managers.

“We also send out an alert and can interface directly with the local fire brigade’s computer systems. What you receive is an alarm with the exact GPS coordinates of the sensor that detected the fire,” says Brinkschulte.

Baptism of fire

The sensors are priced at 48 euros (US$49) each. Dryad, which has a team of about 30 people, sells the hardware and also offers an annual subscription model, priced at 15% of the total hardware cost, which includes maintenance and support. Its main customers are municipalities and private forests, as well as power companies and railways, whose equipment is often the source of fires.

Sensors placed at the edge of the forest transmit emergency signals to the Internet via satellite and 4G. Credit: Dryad

So far, the company has installed 300 sensors in a dozen test deployments in Germany, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the United States and South Korea, as well as Montiferru in Italy. Brinkschulte says these tests only require a handful of sensors because fires are started intentionally, to show forest managers how the system works.

“We have been testing the Dryad system in a forest area of ​​about 50 hectares that was particularly affected by arson fires,” says Philipp Nahrstedt, who manages a 62,000-hectare forest in the east-central state of Saxony-Anhalt. Germany.

“We started a forest fire and within 14 minutes it was detected by the sensors. This detection time was phenomenal and demonstrated the great potential of the Dryad system,” he adds.

Dryad now intends to ramp up production of the sensors, with a plan to build 10,000 units in the coming months and 230,000 next year.

“Eventually we will reach the millions,” says Brinkschulte, adding that Dryad’s goal is to have 120 million of them deployed by 2030. With this, he says, 3.9 million hectares of forest could be saved from burning, about 40% of the burned surface worldwide from forest fires in 2021, and prevent 1.7 billion metric tons of CO2 from reaching the atmosphere.