In 2015, there were 68,000 wildfires in the United States that damaged about 4,500 structures. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) mentioned in 2015, one structure fire was reported every 63 seconds and one civilian fire injury was reported every 34 minutes.

One main cause of many forest fires are the emitted fire embers that come from already burning forest fires. Millions of these burning fire embers float through the air, carrying the heat and energy of the fire itself and ultimately transfer that heat to its surroundings. These floating firebrands remain a large factor in the spread of wildfires, but not much is known about these small particles. For example, it is unknown at what temperature the firebrand burns, what causes it to break off and float, the rate in which it dissipates heat, or the energy density associated with the firebrand. After speaking with local firefighters, our team learned the depth in which fires are analyzed. We asked, if there was a tool to analyze the firebrands developed by the fire, would they use it. The response was a strong yes, followed by an explanation of how all information gathered is analyzed and used to characterize the fire.

We strive to build a rugged, affordable, compact camera system used to analyze firebrands in ways that have not been analyzed before. During this process, we will determine if it is feasible for us to use a cell phone camera, and simply build an application to analyze the firebrands, or if we need to move to a stand-alone camera. Simply using a cell phone application will ensure our project remains affordable, but if we need to move to a stand-alone camera, we will use an affordable point-and-shoot type camera. The data will be analyzed within the device and can be saved as a file and be forwarded to the interested parties.

To determine the temperature, a very important aspect, we will use multi-color pyrometry. This process allows us to compare ratios of intensities from three different wavelengths (colors), and after proper calibration will read out a temperature. The information gained from this technique will also be used for the other analytic requirements. Multi-color pyrometry is used because this technique is easily integrated into existing camera technologies, and to reduce error or uncertainty due to the highly dynamic nature of the emissivity characteristic of firebrands.

Software such as ChemKin and Solidworks will be used to classify and characterize our work and data. This software may give us additional information not seen or understood from the physical experiments. Integration of these two processes will not take place in the beginning, but as the project continues we hope to use the software to make accurate predictions.

According to the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF), there is about 220 million acres of wildland-urban interface (WUI) land in the U.S. with 46 million homes and 120 million people. Within the past decade, an average of 100,000 fires burn about 3,000 structures annually, and one of the most common ways these structures burn is from ignition by a burning fire ember. These fire embers are emitted by a nearby forest fire, then travel and land on a roof in the WUI. Our vision is to enable the firefighters and residents of the WUI communities with this affordable and accessible tool to predict and prevent such fires.