Early detection of small forest fire by dial technique

Forest fires can be the cause of serious environmental and economic damages. For this reason considerable effort has been directed toward forest protection and fire fighting. The means traditionally used for early fire detection mainly consist in human observers dispersed over forest regions. A significant improvement in early warning capabilities could be obtained by using automatic detection apparatus. In order to early detect small forest fires, the use of a dial system will be considered. A first evaluation of the lowest detectable concentration will be estimated by a numerical simulation. The theoretical model will be used also to get the capacities of a dial system in fire surveillance of wooded areas. Fixing the burning rate for several fuels, the maximum range of detection will be evaluated. The results of these simulations will be reported in the paper.