Decision Support System – Increasing Infrastructure Resilience to Wildfires

This practice is composed of a network of multi-sensorial monitoring systems for the automatic detection of wildfires and a Decision Support System (DSS), which simulates fire spread and alerts where and when it will impact the electric or gas infrastructures. The developed monitoring systems report meteorological data and the detection of wildfires through multi-spectral cameras installed on the top of the electric pylons.

Highlights

• Anticipates where and when a wildfire will impact the electric or gas infrastructures, using the developed DSS, which increases the efficiency in dispatch and operational rooms.
• Covers an average area of 110 km² for each individual monitoring system, limited by topographic conditions.
• Allows real time tracking of the fire through a PTZ camera.
• Applicable worldwide if meteorological data, fuel and topography maps, and an input of ignitions are available.

The Portuguese TSO, REN, manages over 10,000 km of linear infrastructure – electricity transmission lines and gas pipelines - 66% of which is in forest areas and exposed to the risk of wildfires, with over 5000 fires being detected near REN’s infrastructure every year. To address this concern, within the scope of the rePLANT Agenda, REN developed a pilot project with ADAI from University of Coimbra and Whereness. For the early detection of wildfires an integrated monitoring system was developed with Bee2Fire.

The developed DSS is based on a fire spread algorithm of the IMFire system, developed by ADAI. When a fire is detected, a fire spread simulation is done and the predicted fire perimeter is intersected with the infrastructures. This allows personnel in operation control rooms to know where and when it will impact the infrastructure.