Smokesonde: Low cost in-situ sampling of smoke and convective storm intensity supporting fire weather and incident meteorology

We propose to develop in-situ low cost sensors to support fire meteorology for wildland fire emergency response, by blanketing the fire area with real time measurements. Sensors can be air-deployed to provide vertical atmospheric measurement profiles or hand-emplaced for augmenting existing surface fire weather stations. Each telemeters precision measurements of air temperature, solar radiation, imagery, daytime cloud cover, lightning, rain, and soil temperature/moisture. Smoke imaging, lightning sferic and moisture sensors will be integrated. CO2 or SO2 gas sensors as options can support monitoring of volcanic plumes. Our R&D involves leveraging miniature light-scattering dust sensors that sample air passing through a XDD dropsonde body during the descending/ascending phase. A camera will provide close in fire scene imagery and measure daytime cloud cover. Grid impedance sensors will detect precipitation and determine soil moisture. Ground temperature will be measured via an infrared thermometer while a fast-responding fine grid thermometer sensor detects fluctuations arising from rapid convection. It will help quantify the on scene thermodynamic picture. It will capture the spatial distribution and intensity from sferic activity and discern cloud-to-ground vs. cloud-to-cloud strokes, and stroke frequency to capture convective storm intensity/evolution so important to fire weather and severe storm meteorology.