New technology is changing the way wildland
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Attacking a fire today is as much about computers and labs, as it is about hoses and shovels.
If
firefighters are considered the James Bonds, the Double-Oh Operatives,
in the war on wildfires, then the people working at the U.S. Forest
Service’s Missoula Technology and Development Center are "Q", the
dead-serious scientists who invent the gadgets used to beat the bad
guys, or bad fires, as it were.
"This
right here is actually a core temperature capsule,” says Joe
Domitrovich, exercise physiologist with the Forest Service’s MTDC.
“And this is ingested by a wildland firefighter."
The
capsule is swallowed and it sends, via blue-tooth, minute-by-minute
body temperature readings. Domitrovich now uses this and other devices
to monitor how firefighters respond to their conditions.
"Right
now we're following a hot shot crew just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska,”
says Joe Sol, another exercise physiologist with the USFS.
Sol
compiles the data, “So we can go through and get caloric expenditure,
then also see how they respond to an activity and how fast they can
recover from that activity as well."
The “Joes” can then determine the types of workouts and diet the firefighters need.
Down
the hall, Kevin Brown is testing a new type of repelling device, to
replace the current one that would simply let a firefighter fall to his
death should he lose consciousness during a helicopter drop.
"Whereas
this one gives the opportunity to stop,” says Brown. “And gives someone
else the opportunity to rescue you or at least get ahold of a handle
again."
Bret Butler, a USFS Research Mechanical Engineer, stands in front of a relief map.
"And
something happened that caused the winds to push the fire up this way,
catching the firefighters working on this fire line,” says Butler. “And
it killed ‘m."
Butler uses a 1994 Colorado fire that killed 14 firefighters as his example, and his motivation, to develop “Wind-Ninja.”
“At every drainage,” says Butler. “At every ridge top, almost around every tree, you can see what the wind is going to do."
“There'd
be many different applications where that would be extremely useful,”
says Kurt Rohrbach, a USFS Smokejumper. He says on the fire line,
information is key.
"I’m
glad,” says Rohrbach. “That we're focusing more time and energy on that
technology. I think that's going to help our organization grow and be
able to fight fire more effectively and efficiently."
Like
the robotic parachute Boyd Burtch, a Smokejumper and Loadmaster
Foreman, is testing. At night, or in heavy smoke, planes can't fly low
enough to accurately drop supplies. But these new GPS units will enable
the firefighters to simply shove it out the side or the back of a
plane, and then with precision accuracy it will land exactly where they
want it to. This would replace the current method of delivery, which
sometimes includes hauling-in the packs using horses.
“The horses would definitely take hours to get to some spot that we could fly to within 20 or 30 minutes,” says Burtch.
Moving firefighting from the 19th, to the 21st Century.
"Our work allows us to hopefully make decisions that can help bring them home safe to their families," says Joe Domitrovich.
The
ultimate goal for the behind-the-scenes heroes, who help the heros on
the front lines, the fire lines, keep the rest of us out of harm's way.
The
next piece of technology the U.S. Forest Service is testing -- drones--
that can do re-con on a fire that's too difficult for regular aircraft.
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