Smart sensing technology solving bushfire challenges
The NSSN Frontiers in Sensing Forum 2020 took place online on 7 May 2020. The Forum, opened by The Hon. Matt Kean MP, NSW Minister for Energy & Environment, brought together smart sensing and bushfire experts with key policymakers to explore the role of smart sensing technology in delivering solutions to the complex challenges of bushfire prevention, mitigation and response.
Mr Kean said the bushfires that raged through New South Wales over the summer of 2019-20 created an unprecedented state of emergency.
“Lives were lost, homes were destroyed, and communities were absolutely gutted,” said Mr Kean.“We must learn from the last fire season, and we must do better for the next.”
“I want to work with the scientific community and the members of the NSW Smart Sensing Network, to find ways for smart sensing technology to deliver real solutions to the challenge of bushfire prevention, mitigation and response.”
Dr Susan Pond AM, Chair of the NSSN Board introduced Mr Rob Rogers, the incoming NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner. The Commissioner provided the audience with a keynote address on the critical role that smart sensing technology can play in delivering solutions for emergency responders.
Mr Rogers said new firefighting jets mounted with advanced scanning systems could produce multispectral high definition images that can be processed onboard. The new jets also feature an automated fire detection system that can automatically map the fire edge.
“The current line scanning technology takes a raw image that has to have an actual fire boundary put on it,” said Mr Rogers. “This [new technology] will automatically do that mapping.”
“We’re cutting out significant delay in trying to get that [mapping] so that we get the information more quickly to the community.”
The keynote address was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Dr Katherine Woodthorpe AO, Chair of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC.
Dr Woodthorpe said the response agencies and research community are working hard to implement learnings from the last fire season.
“Although we’re deep in the COVID pandemic and extremely and reasonably distracted by that, the next fire season is only three months away,” said Dr Woodthorpe.
The panel of experts included Mr Andrew Gissing, Director at Risk Frontiers; Mr Matt Riley, Director at Climate and Atmospheric Science, NSW Dept. of Planning, Industry and Environment; Mr Adrian Turner, Lead at Minderoo Wildfire and Disaster Resilience Program and Dr Marta Yebra, Senior Lecturer in Environment & Engineering at The Australian National University.
The Forum featured a Q&A for the audience to ask questions from the experts. The panel received questions on topics such as wearable sensors for firefighters, combining local sensor data with satellite data, using low-cost sensors for air quality monitoring and more.
Mr Turner said wearable sensors could potentially help with safety and providing situational awareness. “It’s also thinking about the community more broadly and the role that they could play in providing situational awareness,” said Mr Turner.
Dr Yebra, who is involved in developing the first Australian satellite to detect bushfires from space, said data integration is important for detecting bushfires.
“Satellites are able to pick up very small fires, but if you integrate these with on-ground sensors [data], you can add more intelligence and information to give us an integrated system,” Dr Yebra said.
Mr Riley said when it comes to low-cost sensors, we have to be aware of the quality of the data that they produce.
“Some of the low-cost sensors that we’ve been testing did not see the dust at all and could not see the combination of dust and smoke,” Mr Riley said. “So a little bit more work to do in this space.”
“When we get thousands of sensors in the field, we’ll start to see the real marriage between the sensing technology, machine learning and data blending models,” added Mr Riley. “We would be able to make a big difference in our intelligence, particularly around bushfires.”
Professor Ben Eggleton, Co-Director at NSSN and Director at Sydney Nano Institute presented the closing remarks at the Forum.
“The forum has clearly established the gaps in technology in a number of areas which align well with the smart sensing expertise and capabilities of the NSSN,” said Professor Eggleton.
Professor Justin Gooding, Co-Director at NSSN and the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine said the commissioner and the panel made it clear that advances in smart sensing are crucial for better prevention, management and mitigation of bushfires.
“The NSSN very much want to play our part in developing these sensors that will help make our summers safer,” Professor Gooding added.
View a recording of the Forum here.
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Media: Shahrzad Abbasi - 0466548145