[Esip-envirosensing] Call follow-up -- Washington Post piece on Cal fires, air quality monitoring issues

[Scotty D Strachan]

Our AlertWildfire project (http://www.alertwildfire.org/), slowly incubating for the last 10 years, has finally started to take off. The software team is small, and barely keeping up with the back end of getting secure connectivity for fire managers into all the cameras.

However, there has been some exploration (and a lot of talk) about automation for public reporting and geolocation based on image analysis or triangulation (pre-validation). A companion project WIFIRE at UCSD is focused on modeling and more software integration for science (https://wifire.ucsd.edu/), so some of the public comms side might happen there too.

But this rapidly-expanding network of cameras and data backhaul would be a great jumping-off platform for low-power distributed local sensor arrays (I do this some already for my own science). Often the backhauls and camera sites have grid-independence or some layer of battery/generator backup. It’s not a design requirement, but we try.

Scotty



[University of Nevada, Reno]<http://www.unr.edu/>

Scotty Strachan, Ph.D.
Director of Cyberinfrastructure
Office of Information Technology

Director, Nevada Climate-ecohydrology Assessment Network
College of Science
University of Nevada, Reno

work-phone: 775-682-5015<tel:775-682-5015>
cell-phone: 775-721-1308<tel:775-721-1308>
email: strachan at unr.edu<mailto:strachan at unr.edu>
twitter: @ScottySci<https://twitter.com/scottysci>



From: Esip-envirosensing <esip-envirosensing-bounces at lists.esipfed.org> On Behalf Of Vicky Kelly via Esip-envirosensing
Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2019 5:12 AM
To: frazmo <frazmo at gmail.com>
Cc: esip-envirosensing at lists.esipfed.org
Subject: Re: [Esip-envirosensing] Call follow-up -- Washington Post piece on Cal fires, air quality monitoring issues

Is there a way to develop an app or website for people to know where spot fires have started? And possibly wind speed and direction? Residents use a mish mash of social media, telephone, ham radio, tin cans & string... to communicate with each other. Ok, maybe not that last one. They don't necessarily pay attention to authorities. In one area in Mendocino Co, an area under mandatory evacuation was changed later to warning -area may be evacuated - a head scratcher. The scary thing is that people could interpret a mandatory evacuation to mean that they should wait because the status could change.
Anyway, thoughts? There would need to be a system for identifying validation.
Air quality info is also so important.
Thanks.
Vicky Kelly

On Wed, Nov 6, 2019 at 10:29 PM frazmo via Esip-envirosensing <esip-envirosensing at lists.esipfed.org<mailto:esip-envirosensing at lists.esipfed.org>> wrote:
At yesterday's call I mentioned 9in the chat box) an article in The Washington Post that discussed the challenges of providing timely, spatially and temporally relevant information about air quality during California's wildfires. Among other issues, the cuts to the power grid were killing air quality monitors at very bad times. Also, the existing monitoring network doesn't provide adequate resolution to inform local residents of dynamically changing air quality during fires. The article also mentions the interesting PurpleAir project.

A link too the article is below. Apologies in advance for any problems with the Post's paywall! Cheers,

Steve Young, EPA (Retired)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/04/when-power-went-out-during-californias-wildfires-air-quality-monitors-turned-off-too/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Ftechnology%2F2019%2F11%2F04%2Fwhen-power-went-out-during-californias-wildfires-air-quality-monitors-turned-off-too%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cstrachan%40unr.edu%7Cfb8dd40f6b5b4e5fe7c308d763842a3f%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=nsklJrqp57a%2BdOFOAtNenkfV%2FGZ1MUnj3eSznvGuA0Q%3D&reserved=0>

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Victoria R. Kelly<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caryinstitute.org%2Fwho-we-are%2Fpeople-cary%2Fvictoria-kelly&data=01%7C01%7Cstrachan%40unr.edu%7Cfb8dd40f6b5b4e5fe7c308d763842a3f%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=IPRsby%2FZvdQQleTj5sf1B3lsvwcIe%2Bxdx2ES5dBJpW0%3D&reserved=0>
Manager, Environmental Monitoring Program
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Phone 1-845-677-7600 ext. 174
Email kellyv at caryinstitute.org<mailto:kellyv at caryinstitute.org>

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