Firefighters aided by innovative data analysis and sound wave tech

Society has long sought to improve our response to fire emergencies before they rapidly swirl out of control, laying waste to both property and life as they spread. In 2011, there were nearly 1.4 million fires that were reported in America, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. Of those, 370,000 were home fires leading to about 2,500 civilian deaths and nearly 14,000 casualties. Wildfires happen less but are a larger problem, and the 100,000 forest fires that the U.S. averages per year can swallow up to 5 million acres of land, an area larger in size than the state of Connecticut. In total, fires in America claimed the lives of 3,005 individuals and resulted in $11.7 billion worth of economic loss.

But there are signs that fire emergency response has become better over time. Everything from the number of fires, deaths, injuries and economic loss stemming from fires dropped between 2002 and 2011, as much as by 20 percent in the case of both deaths and total number of fires. Statistics collected by the National Fire Protection Association going back to 1977 show that the number of home fires have been cut in half since that time. The same holds true for deaths and injuries stemming from home fires.

Amid these successes, however, there are growing causes for concern for certain types of fires, especially wildfires. Forest fires have become larger and more prevalent in Alaska in recent years and this year have already spread through one million acres of Alaskan land. California has already dealt with 80 forest fires this year and state firefighters are currently working to control six fires as of this writing, one of which had spread to more than 31,000 acres. On July 17th, the North Fire jumped across a highway in the Cajon Pass region about 20 miles north of San Bernardino, CA, injuring no one but scorching about 20 vehicles which had been stopped by fire response crews. Through the first half of 2015, Cal Fire had already responded to almost double the number of wildfires that were called in during all of 2014, the increase attributable at least in part to the worsening drought conditions of the region.

The dynamic nature of fire is such that it makes containment and elimination a very complex problem. As is noted in a report on fire prevention innovation from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the uncertainty of fuel and air forces on fires makes it difficult for computer models to accurately predict how a fire will travel through a building. There is also a lack of understanding of how much soot is generated by a fire, which is a key indicator of the rate of fire spread as well as the formation of smoke. The technically challenging and dangerous environment of a fire makes it difficult to collect the data necessary for a better knowledge of fire dynamics. At the fire station itself, issues in leadership clinging to older traditions as well as the need for established standards for fire suppressants and fire retardants have been discussed as obstacles to fire response innovation that need to be addressed.

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Innovation in fire response and prevention technologies has been a growing focus in the world of fire safety. In February 2013, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) held its first-ever Innovation Conference in San Diego, CA, to explore the innovative potential of the public-private partnership that could exists between fire chiefs and businesses. Innovation in fire equipment and technologies is also a topic of the IAFC’s annual Fire-Rescue International conference, which will be held this August in Atlanta, GA.

When fire attacks a structure, it strikes quickly and it takes no prisoners; it can take 30 seconds for a small flame to turn into an emergency situation and less than five minutes for a home to become engulfed in flames. Response to a fire emergency needs to be swift and decisive. In large buildings, fire response becomes a huge logistical problem especially in warehouses with combustible plastics and other explosive material serving as fuel.

Putting out fires with water is an ancient solution to this problem but it’s also one that has been upgraded over time through innovation. Analytical tools can evaluate fire behavior to determine a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model which can inform firefighting crews of the best places to apply water. The NIST Engineering Laboratory has developed fire dynamics simulator (FDS) software applications for CFD modeling as well as visualization programs which display the output of these analysis. Most interesting is a NIST development known as FDS+Evac, which can be coupled with the modeling of fire behavior to take the evacuation of people from fire emergencies into account as well. These software tools are open source and can be downloaded freely here.

The visualization of fire emergencies is crucial for crews who have to rush into a emergency that needs to be brought under control quickly, a task which is made even more difficult when there is little knowledge of the structure’s interior. One technology for visualizing emergency situations, known as SituMap, is currently in development by faculty over at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. The mapping application, which will be sold by CartoFusion Technologies, is designed to serve as a digital command center implemented on a table-size display which gives fire crews the ability to better track individuals, groups of people and other support crews. SituMap is enabled to import various data sources so that firefighters can incorporate a structure’s floor plans or images captured by assisting drones.

Wildfires which can spread to thousands of acres require visualization techniques of a different magnitude entirely. Thankfully, NASA has provided us with eyes in the sky which are finally being used to improve predictive models for wildfires and forest fires. The space agency has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop a system which can analyze fires in finer detail than possible through conventional means. In this program, high-resolution data is collected from the Earth-observing satellite system known as the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership’s (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which can increase the resolution of fire imaging to 1,230 feet from conventional methods which only offered 3,280-foot resolution. The data can be made quickly available to fire crews and provides continuous detection for small fires which may not have yet been reported. The partnership between NASA and the USDA will also help the latter agency develop more accurate water availability forecasts as well as a drought early-warning system for water providers.

Regional environmental issues, such as water scarcity, can have an affect on how firefighters are able to handle emergency response to an inferno. At least one American heavy industrial manufacturer is having an impact in places across the globe. In early July, Spartan Motors Inc. (NASDAQ:SPAR) completed the delivery of 21 custom truck pumpers to the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Water scarcity and low water pressure concerns in the Brazilian metropolis, home to 44 million people, were taken into account by Spartan Motors, who designed a foam-based fire suppression system for the truck that reduces the amount of water needed to put out a blaze.

There would be no need for water to stop a wildly blazing fire at all if a method pioneered by a pair of students from George Mason University is ever fully developed. Electrical engineering students Seth Robertson and Viet Tran have developed a prototype constructed of an amplifier and a cardboard collimator which focuses sound waves to fight fires. When sound waves of a certain frequency are directed at a fire, it is capable of manipulating both oxygen and burning material in such a way that suffocates the blaze. The students’ discovery has proven more effective than similar research at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and West Georgia University primarily due to the realization that low bass frequencies, not ultra-high ones, were optimal for snuffing out fires. This technology could be useful to restaurants with open stovetops or astronauts dealing with fires in space, according to Tran. George Mason is reportedly helping the pair of engineering students file a patent application for their innovative fire extinguisher.

Innovative building design can also do a lot to encourage the safe evacuation of building occupants during an emergency and fireproof architecture, especially in urban settings, has been a major focus in construction since historic tragedies such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. British air technology solutions company Flakt Woods has designed a smoke stack vent system for residential buildings ranging in size from three stories to 20 stories tall. The vent extracts any smoke from a fire through the ducts, preventing it from building up in communal areas or the escape stairs. The system utilizes high-efficiency extract fans which can also be used to get rid of excess hot air from a building’s corridors during the summertime. It’s believed that this innovation would be of great benefit to apartment complexes, office buildings, hotels and other multi-resident structures.