International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research ISSN 2348-6988 (online) Vol. 8, Issue 3, pp: (10-14), Month: July - September 2020, Available at: www.researchpublish.com
Wireless Forest Fire Detection and Control System Daniel Taylor1, Clement T. Siaw2 12
Department of Electrical/Electronics Engineering
12
Accra Technical University, P.O Box 561, Accra, Ghana
Abstract: Forest fires pose a real threat to human lives, ecological systems and properties. Hundreds of millions of hectares are destroyed by wildfires each year and over 200,000 forest fires happen every year around the world. Forest fires destroy a total area of 3.5 to 4.5 million km². Unfortunately, Forest fire is usually only noticed when it has already spread over a large area, making it difficult to control and sometimes making stoppage impossible at times. The result is devastating loss and irreversible damage to the environment and atmosphere (30%of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere comes from forest fires), in addition to irreversible damage to the environment (huge amounts of smoke and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere). Fire outbreaks have a starting period of about 3 to 5 minutes which is the ideal time to detect it and put it out after which it might get out of control. This means that timely identification of potential fire outbreak sources is critical to managing it. Most Forests are not fitted with fire detection devices owing to lack of awareness, inefficiencies, ineffectiveness and high costs. This project seeks to design and model a prototype of a simple and efficient wireless forest fire detection and control system. This project applied rapid prototype methodology for development of the prototype. Keywords: Forest Fire, Arduino microcontroller, GSM, GPS
1. INTRODUCTION A forest is a large area which is usually dominated by trees. Forests cover 31 percent of the world’s land surface, just over 4 billion hectares. (One hectare = 2.47 acres.) [1] They provide a range of ecosystem services including aiding in regulating climate, mitigating natural hazards such as floods. Studies have shown that forests induce rainfall as such when forests are cut or destroyed by forest fires it can lead to drought. The latter, which has been a research interest for many years. Forest fires always start by one of two ways - naturally caused or human caused. Natural fires are generally started by lightning, with a very small percentage started by spontaneous combustion of dry fuel such as sawdust and leaves. Human-caused fires can be due to any number of reasons including smoking, recreation and equipment. Human-caused fires constitute the greater percentage of forest fires in our forests, but natural fires constitute the great majority of the total area burned. This is because human-caused fires are usually detected early in their duration, and therefore they are usually contained easily. Natural fires, on the other hand, can burn for hours before being detected by firefighting authorities.[2] Forest fire detection systems are gaining a lot of attention because of the continual threat it poses to both economic properties and public safety.[3] Thousands of forest fires occur every year across the globe and this causes disasters which are beyond measure and description. Apart from causing tragic loss of lives and valuable natural and individual properties including thousands of hectares of forest and hundreds of houses, it has become a serious threat to healthy grown forests and protection of the environment. There is a huge amount of very well studied solutions available out there for testing or even ready for use to resolve this problem. However, it is hard to apply these systems in large open areas for a variety of reasons like high cost, energy usage and inefficiencies by the various technologies. The most overlooked aspect of fighting forest fires is communication. It is important that the authorities be notified immediately when a fire occurs. A fire which is detected in its early stages will be much easier to extinguish than one that has been burning for some time but has only just been discovered due of lack of communication. This paper presents a novel approach in detecting forest fires and ensures that prompt notifications are sent to the proper authorities for action to be taken.
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