Fire monitoring
Since 2007, the Landes forest has been placed under automatic video surveillance in order to detect fires and forest fires starting as early as possible. The automatic video detection system for fires and forest fires was designed and implemented by PARATRONIC.
The ADELIE system, an automatic video surveillance system for fire outbreaks, allows for early and automatic detection by video surveillance of the Landes forest, and the intervention of the necessary means in a short time.
No intervention is triggered following an automatic video surveillance detection without human confirmation thanks to an analysis of the video images transmitted in real time. These video images also allow the monitoring of the evolution of the fire or the outbreak of fires even before the arrival of the first units on site.
The 18 watchtowers of the Landes massif are now equipped with 54 video surveillance cameras.
A first in firefighting in France.
In July 2004, one of the 39 lookouts of the Landes Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) was found lifeless at the foot of his lookout tower, obviously struck by lightning.
"For safety reasons, we decided that no more lookouts would go up the towers," explains Colonel Olivier Bourdil, director of the SDIS 40.
But how do you monitor the forest and detect fire outbreaks without the sharp eye of the rescuers?
The solution chosen: the installation of around fifty surveillance cameras on top of the towers. Since the beginning of the summer season, the system called ADELIE is operational in the 18 watchtowers managed by the SDIS 40.
The 660,000 hectares of maritime pine trees in the Landes massif are thus placed under video surveillance.
"The main advantage of our system is that it is intelligent," says Philippe Arnoult, head of the SDIS 40 IT department, "It works on the principle of image comparison.
On each of the towers, 40 metres above the ground, two cameras with a range of 20 kilometres continuously scan the forest over a 180° field.
In less than two minutes - the time it takes to rotate - they take 18 pictures. When they return to their starting point, they take another 18 pictures.
Using complex algorithms, a computer analyses the images and automatically detects the smoke plumes that may appear on the horizon.
All this data is then sent to the security headquarters in Mont-de-Marsan. They are transmitted via a Wimax-type digital wireless transmission network, a sort of long-distance Wi-Fi.
In other words, the data passes from turn to turn in successive jumps of about 20 kilometres.
The advantage of this type of link is that it offers a much higher throughput (from 50 to 300 Mbit/s) than ADSL, with a precision of 300 metres.
If an anomaly is detected, a circle surrounds the smoke on the picture that is displayed on the operator's monitor. Is it a fire, a dust cloud from an agricultural machine or factory smoke?
To remove any doubt, the firefighter can then operate a third camera placed at the top of the tower.
With its powerful zoom, it transmits real-time images, not photos.
It can also control a camera installed on another tower to obtain a different view.
"Once a fire has been detected, it must be located as quickly as possible," says Colonel Bourdil.
This is done by triangulation. Explanation: a tower gives a first azimuth. A second one allows to establish a second one. All that remains is to plot these data on a map. The start of the fire is located at the intersection of the two lines. "The accuracy of the system is very good: the start of a fire is located to within 300 or 350 metres," Olivier Bourdil points out.
The officer coordinating the rescue effort can even see the progress of the fire on a giant screen in real time.
"He has a very precise vision of the situation as if he were in one of the watchtowers with a pair of binoculars," notes Philippe Arnoult.
Since its implementation, four fires have been detected.
The ADELIE (Alert Detection Localisation) system is a forest fire monitoring system that detects the presence of smoke in the natural environment thanks to a unique image capture and processing principle.
Installation of a hydrological station at the intersection of several tributaries of the Indre for SABI36 in Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre: LNS, level sensor, camera for doubt removal, web supervisor.
France 3 report: Implementation of the ADELIE system for monitoring forest fires in the Sarthe (72).
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