New technologies

Forest fires: scientists are mobilizing

Audio 02:12

Firefighters fight the fires ravaging the Landes and Gironde in western France, August 10, 2022. © SDIS 33 via AP

By: Dominique Desaunay Follow

3 mins

Many high-tech devices are the subject of intensive research in France to enable firefighters to fight forest fires more effectively.

While the evolution of the climate favors conflagrations, the "Feux" Research Group, made up of French scientists, is also working to better understand and predict the real-time behavior of mega forest fires.

Advertising

As a result of global warming which is racing with increasingly frequent and intense episodes of drought,

thousands of hectares of forests go up in smoke each year

.

Ecosystems are devastated, landscapes destroyed and our homes sometimes go up in flames.

In order to better understand how forest fires spread and evolve, many French and European scientists have joined the

“Feux

” Research Group.

The researchers' goal is to

develop artificial intelligence programs that

allow firefighters to predict live and

in situ

the evolution of mega fires.

But scientists are also mobilizing to develop new technologies that will protect fire fighters from an infernal furnace, says Anthony Collin, teacher-researcher at the University of Lorraine.

“The spread of a forest fire is very difficult to model.

It is a process that we scientists call stochastic, that is to say, it incorporates a lot of random data.

For example, with regard to the nature of the vegetation that burns and which varies according to its geographical location.

We also have a lack of knowledge of the different species present that will be impacted by the fire.

We also face many unknowns regarding the amount of material at the disaster scene that our computer models need to process.

Moreover, this randomness affects the field of meteorology, requiring information readings of the order of ten meters on the ground.

This is why the “Feux” Research Group brings together different scientific disciplines, such as meteorologists, but also ecologists who will have information on the level of water stress of vegetation in the field.

The research group includes physicists, chemists, but also mathematicians, because all the data must be processed statistically to be relevant.

All areas of science are therefore called upon to help define an effective firefighting strategy and establish reliable computer models on the behavior and evolution of a forest fire.

We are also several academics to carry out research on the protection of firefighters who carry out their intervention in extreme conditions.

For instance,

helmets that would be able to block thermal radiation, but also new outfits that resist flames and high temperatures.

The other areas of research concern firefighters' equipment such as fire hoses to optimize the quantity of water, but also the size of the droplets that would be the most effective to project, in order to more quickly contain a forest fire.

»

in order to contain a forest fire more quickly.

»

in order to contain a forest fire more quickly.

»

Remember that one in two fires is due to human negligence.

Poorly controlled agricultural and domestic work,

cigarette butts thrown along the roads and barbecues that get carried away, are the main causes of fires starting

.

Not to mention the criminal acts of arsonists who knowingly started a fire.

Since the 1960s, more than 160 firefighters, water bomber pilots, gendarmes and volunteers have died in France

, while trying to save our forests from flames and at the risk of their lives.

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can write to us at 

nouvelles.technologies@rfi.fr  

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

  • New technologies

  • Climate

  • Environment

  • Knowledge Science