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In our day-to -day lives things are not
always what they seem. With increasing
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temperatures drought and human activity
one small spark and all is lost . Every
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year wildfires destroy millions of acres.
In fire prone areas people report that
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they do not receive emergency warnings
in time. Without an alert warning system
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in place we lose the opportunity to save
lives.
Graham Kent:
ALERT Wildfire which is really in a
sense of virtual fire tower or a fire
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lookout tower of the 21st century not
only develop at the University of Nevada,
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Reno, but by seismologists. We already
have built microwave networks to bring
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back seismic data in real time, and so
what we did is add fire cameras to our system.
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And then developed a software package
that allows firefighters to essentially
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hunt for fires and confirm them. If we
go back 50, 60 years there were just
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hundreds of man fire towers throughout
the West actually 500 in California
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alone. And at that time wildfire behavior
wasn't that extreme. And yet we fast
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forward some 50, 60, 70 years and most of
those lookout towers are abandoned. And
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so in a sense we've kind of taken new
technology and reinvented what we did
Graham Kent:
before, but in this case we have near
infrared vision time-lapse. And we don't
Graham Kent:
have to have people out in many cases dangerous situations. We can monitor it safely from afar.
Ryan Sommers:
ALERT Wildfire system is a good system
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because it gives first responders in
wildland fire fighters the advantage of
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a size up of a smoke column or the fire
before we arrive and especially the
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dispatch centers. They can bring the
smoke column into the camera's view and
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they can make appropriate adjustments to
the response level with a little bit
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more intelligence and a little bit more
visual aid versus just receiving and
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talking to somebody on the phone. It's a
little more reassuring to me on a
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personal level
and on a company level if you will to be
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able to look at these fires in the
camera. I then can see the risk that's at
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stake for our personnel and our
equipment I can see the fire behavior I
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can kind of judge and tell how many days
they'll be committed. I personally use it
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all the time. As soon as I hear of what we
call an initial attack dispatch. I go to
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the site just to look at it and to
to see if North Lake Tahoe Fire can gear up
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and help our partners suppressing
that fire and mitigating that potentially disaster.
Graham Kent:
ALERT Wildfire is a
consortium of three Universities
Graham Kent:
Nevada UC San Diego, and the University of
Oregon.
Sara Meyer:
My name is Sara Meyer and I'm
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from University of Oregon. I started
working at University of Oregon with
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Doug Toomey a couple years ago to work on
ALERT Wildfire. And so my role as the
Sara Meyer:
field technician is to install these
sites and then also to maintain them
Sara Meyer:
once they're installed. We install the
microwave dishes that look at the other
Sara Meyer:
sites that we have in the area and, so we
use two-way communication to be able to
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get our camera data from site to site.
And then deliver to the internet which
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gets to our lab. So part of my job here
is to put those dishes together and
Sara Meyer:
install them and then make sure they're
aligned properly so that we have great
Sara Meyer:
communication between our sites. A couple
years ago in the Tubbs fire. My
Sara Meyer:
mother-in-law had to evacuate in the
middle of the night. And so I directly
Sara Meyer:
see how the communities are affected by
wildfire and how that's been affected by
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the droughts that we've had and we've
had an increase in wildfires in the area.
Sara Meyer:
So we're hoping that this work can
actually help communities to be better
Sara Meyer:
prepared and to actually know what to do
better to respond to fires when they happen.
Colby Nicholson:
My name is Colby Nicholson. I'm a
student at UCSD studying geology and
Colby Nicholson:
I've been working with the ALERT Wildfire
camera systems for about two years now.
Colby Nicholson:
My work with ALERT Wildfire cameras consists of climbing towers installing antennas and
Colby Nicholson:
assessing each tower as we come to it. We have many different kinds of sites that
Colby Nicholson:
we have to adjust our strategies to fit.
Kent Straley:
My name is Kent Straley, I'm with the
Kent Straley:
University of Nevada, Reno. My role is pretty much as a
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technician. We help plan everything from
the beginning stages as far as what
Kent Straley:
equipment goes out and specifically
where it's gonna be. And then we pretty
Kent Straley:
much start the build-out from there.
Graham Kent:
We're using existing infrastructure on mountaintops.
Graham Kent:
This allows us not only to
get out cameras much more quickly but
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saves a lot of money. Sometimes folks ask
that what does it cost to put a camera
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and that's kind of a what-if situation.
So if we're using an existing
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infrastructure
it can be a little as ten thousand
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dollars or less to get that camera up. If we have to build it ourselves it can be as
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much as fifty sixty thousand dollar. So
obviously we like to use a lot of the
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former and less of the latter, but
sometimes we have a mountaintop where we
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just need to put a camera on top. Such as
the Pepperwood preserve and we'll go
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that that long distance to make it
happen.
Graham Kent:
Many people ask me what's the most
significant thing that you've learned
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from doing ALERT Wildfire. Or something that
has affected you the most. And there's no
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doubt hands down it was coming to Coffey park.
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and to see a neighborhood devastated that's a mile by a mile
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well over a thousand homes leveled to the ground.
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You know it hits you in the gut.
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And that really provides motivation for
not only me but our entire group of
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three universities to get these cameras
out quickly. So we can hopefully prevent
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the next Tubbs fire and the next
Coffey park.
Graham Kent:
What we're really trying to do is apply the San Diego County model.
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throughout the western US. That's fire modeling
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before an event up to ten
days. To understand what really is the
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potential outgrowth or hazard of that
let's say Santa Ana. Then what we do is
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we deploy assets both air and ground
assets and then we use the cameras to
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back them up really confirmation or
discovery. If we can do that ballet and
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get everything to work together then we
have a really good chance of knocking
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down the fires early.
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ALERT Wildfire
started in Lake Tahoe and it was called ALERT Tahoe.
Graham Kent:
We're at DL Bliss State Park and
we're putting up the last camera in the
Graham Kent:
ALERT Tahoe Network. It's the 11th of 11
plan. One of that kind of subtle
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nature's of this camera here at DL Bliss State Park. Is it really completes our
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microwave network and will provide a lot
extra resiliency to our camera network.
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And we want to give credit to Heidi Hill
Drum in the Tahoe Prosperity Center.
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This eleven camera build out, and really the first chunk of what would become ALERT Wildfire.
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Wouldn't happen without the Tahoe Prosperity Center in Heidi's efforts.
Heidi Hill Drum:
So what we did is we brought together the
community to fundraise for the equipment
Heidi Hill Drum:
the labor and all of the things
associated with putting these cameras in.
Heidi Hill Drum:
And then the University of Nevada, Reno
did all of the hard work of actually
Heidi Hill Drum:
installing it and the science and
everything in the technology behind it.
Ryan Sommers:
They can look that they can see there's
no smoke they can then adjust that
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response level based off of no smoke in
the air
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and we don't have to launch the aircraft
which saves taxpayers dollars.
Graham Kent:
What we really see in terms of climate change
and impacting fire. Is for example having
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no rain during the summer and late into
the fall, so when we get the winds in the fall.
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The zephyrs here in Lake Tahoe they
can have a really damaging effect
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if we have a fire take off on us
Heidi Hill Drum:
So climate change is absolutely a factor.
Heidi Hill Drum:
We're seeing bigger fires we're seeing more severe fires and these cameras are
Heidi Hill Drum:
helping to protect our community in our
forests. I've lived here in Lake Tahoe
Heidi Hill Drum:
for 25 years so I've seen the forest
change over the years and it is much
Heidi Hill Drum:
drier and much more at risk of wildfire
now then it used to be.
Graham Kent:
These windows the number of days where you can have that
bad fire might have been once every
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couple of years and now we're having
them maybe once a month. The whole
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climate change saying is not just like
oh it's a little bit warmer but there
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are these windows that open and close
and there's a lot more of them so I
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think that's what people need to take
from the climate message.
Heidi Hill Drum:
These cameras have helped stop 56 fires in the Tahoe
Basin. So they give our firefighters the
Heidi Hill Drum:
early intelligence and information that
they need to know exactly where to go to
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stop and put the fires out before they
reach one acre in size. Which is a
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tremendous benefit because it reduces
the chance that that wildfire is going
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to get out of control. If you want to get
involved and you want to help protect
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your community you can go on ALERT
Wildfire.org and you can look at the map
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and you can pick the state you live in.
You can pick the community that you live
Heidi Hill Drum:
in and you can look at the cameras that
are in your area and you can be a fire
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watcher. And you can help the
firefighters and the local authorities
Heidi Hill Drum:
if you see smoke on any of those cameras.
So it's an easy thing to do.
Heidi Hill Drum:
The community can get involved and you can
help protect your family and your community from a devastating wildfire.
Graham Kent:
Now it's you the citizens that have to
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help out and help us spot the fires be
sure you understand your situational
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awareness you know how to use ALERT
Wildfire if we can put that all together
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we can knock down a lot of fires and
those we can't we can get people out of
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the way in a timely fashion and
hopefully save lives.
Ryan Sommers:
Once we're notified or once our dispatch
center picks up that 911 our resources
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have to be in service within 90 seconds.
It's very important for the community to
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become fire - spotters and utilize the
ALERT Wildfire system. Because the more eyes
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that we have viewing these cameras. The
better off we are, for not only the fire department
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and the safety of our personnel
but the lives in the property that were
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responding to protect.
