Physics research into auroras improves wildfire detection

Wildfires result in loss of life, property and crops, as well as billions in economic costs to prevent, mitigate and suppress the damage. Yet they are notoriously difficult to rapidly detect and accurately locate at the time of ignition, when countermeasures are most effective. Advanced image processing techniques developed using pioneering research by a Lancaster space scientist have been integrated into automatic camera systems. Their deployment and monitoring has allowed prompt reporting of smoke plumes, saving tens of thousands of hectares of forests and millions of tons of CO2 emissions.

Professor Mike Kosch’s pioneering research into artificial auroras and locating distant, ill-defined moving objects led to the development of advanced image processing techniques. South African company EnviroVision Solutions (EVS) integrated these into a vast network of automated and strategically positioned cameras, called ForestWatch®. These have been used to rapidly detect, accurately geo-locate and promptly report forest wildfires based on detecting smoke plumes up to 25 km away.

EVS has deployed 340 camera systems so far around the world, mainly in South Africa and North America, with trials underway in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Greece and Spain. These have substantially reduced commercial forest wildfire losses and their associated global CO2 emissions.

• Satellite burn-scar data demonstrates that in South African regions where ForestWatch® was deployed, 120,000 ± 20,000 hectares of forest have been saved between 2014-2021.
• This equates to a total commercial saving of approximately £1 billion and CO2 reduction of 27 million tonnes, valued at £1.2 billion, in South Africa alone in the period 2014 to 2020.
• The economic burden due to wildfire is estimated to be $70.0 billion to $350.0 billion per annum in the USA. EVS USA has deployed 137 ForestWatch® systems in North America, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, California and Oregon.
• In North America, it is estimated that ForestWatch® systems have saved £1.6 billion in timber and 38 million tonnes of CO2, valued at £1.9 billion in the period 2014 to 2020.