Fire Weather Observation Sensor (FWOS) System

New technology that facilitates detection and management of wildfires on forest lands is criticalfor enhancing the protection of the nation's forests and forest resources. New technology willalso help maintain the health and productivity of the nation's forest ecosystems as well asprovide new information to fire service personnel for understanding and managing wildfires. Tomeet this critical need Intellisense Systems Inc. investigated and successfully developed a newFire Weather Observation Sensor (FWOS) system in a Phase I effort. Intellisense used acombination of newly developed and commercially available sensors to demonstrate thefeasibility of a unique hand-portable fire weather system that consists of on-board powerharvesting and storage as well as satellite data transmission capabilities. FWOS acts as a stand- alone unattended field-deployable sensor for remote measurements of fire weather-related dataand transmits the data via satellite from anywhere in the world. During the Phase I developmenteach sensor configuration was tested on benchtop setups and demonstrated during outdoortesting. In parallel the system architecture of a preliminary Phase II prototype was developed fornear-term field deployment. Intellisense also established a partnership with one of the leadingproviders of fire weather monitoring equipment in preparation for commercialization of theFWOS. In Phase II Intellisense will integrate the existing and newly developed sensors a solarenergy harvesting unit communication capabilities and electronics hardware into a singleoperational prototype for extensive field testing. The prototypes will be demonstrated to CalFireand National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) for feedback on performance.