The Tech of a Forest Fire
When I started to work for the Los Angeles County Fire department, this was the last place where I expected to find technology. I was amazed at what kinds of technology that are available and used to fight forest fires. Water is not the only firefighting tool in the battle against a fire. Enter technology.I was contacted by the Los Angeles County Forestry Department. They wanted to create a mobile communications vehicle that they can take up to forest fires. We started brainstorming on some ideas on what we wanted this vehicle to do. They wanted a computer system that can connect to the company's network. The Forestry Department wanted 2 LCD monitors with 3 printers- one of which is going to be a plotter. The vehicle was to contain a digital wireless communications system as well as an analog 2-way radio. Most importantly, it is to contain an infrared system to view hotspots in a wildfire. We named the vehicle "The Infrared Van" or "IR Van" for short. We bought an old van that looked like an ice cream truck. It was painted, fire department sticke
The dish connects to a VCR inside the van. The VCR, which accepts the analog data, transmits the data into a video capture card inside the computer which converts analog to digital data. In the air, water dropping airplanes and helicopters will be able to pinpoint hot spots. The infrared camera can also find victims through thick smoke. The computer was connected to three printers via a Belkin auto-switch. Such instruments capable of remote temperature measurement are termed "radiometers. Radiated heat which can be sensed by our skin, can't be seen by our eyes. To get rid of cables, we chose to use a wireless keyboard and mouse. Wescam is a visual information systems company that provides the capture of stabilized, high magnification images from moving vehicles, digital and analog wireless transmission of video and data to remote locations. Wescam's camera makes it possible to determine the temperature of any object by measuring the infrared radiation emitted. It also has a feature to capture images in infrared to locate hot spots. These hot spots have the potential to re-ignite. The computer processes the digital info and displays them on the LCD monitors. The data would be a live broadcast of the fire. We added a computer system in the van which contains Windows 2000.
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