When Stanford wildfire researchers ran into challenges deploying sensors to monitor smoke from prescribed burns, they turned to a reliable resource of innovation: students.
Students in the Stanford Radio Club have been working with researchers since last summer to develop customized sensors for prescribed fire monitoring and sustainability research.
The low-cost, low-power sensors could help inform risk management as state wildfire agencies and others scale up their use of prescribed burns to address increasingly intense wildfires that have devastated communities. The sensors could also help researchers better understand the impacts of prescribed burns on surrounding communities.
“We know that ‘good fire’ can help in part with preventing larger catastrophic wildfires, and we need to think about the public health impacts of the smoke that’s going to come out of it,” said Jessica Yu, a staff scientist at the Climate and Energy Policy Program and the Woods Institute for the Environment. “To do that, we need to think innovatively, collaborate with others, and this is one potential tool among many to help support that.”
Better data collection
The State of California has fast-tracked wildfire prevention efforts, which include conducting more controlled burns. But fire management agencies need better data to understand how controlled burns impact the air quality for surrounding communities, and adjust their practices as needed.
Existing models for forecasting smoke from prescribed fires are not accurate enough, as they are based on large geographic weather data rather than localized data from the area being burned, Yu said.
“We have to do a better job at connecting with local public health agencies to be able to bring notifications to the community so sensitive populations, like children, seniors, and people with preexisting health conditions can protect themselves and be aware,” Yu said. Prescribed burns must also take into account differing needs of communities, such as protecting crops in agricultural areas.
Last year, Yu worked on a pilot project that sought to better understand the impact of prescribed fires on local air quality and develop low-cost ways for land managers to monitor air pollutants and smoke exposure.
The pilot project was led by researchers from the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program at the Law School. It was supported by the Office of Community Engagement’s Impact Funds and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and conducted in collaboration with Swanton Pacific Ranch and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
The project began collecting data using consumer-ready smoke sensors in prescribed burns at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma) and Swanton Pacific Ranch. Sensors were deployed both near the fires and on trails about a mile away.
However, because existing sensors designed to connect to Wi-Fi and run on reliable power sources were less suitable for remote areas, the project encountered challenges like battery limitations, data collection gaps, and inability to do real-time monitoring.
Electrical engineering adjunct lecturer Pete Mahowald suggested that students in the Stanford Radio Club might be able to help.
“I was hoping to find support to fix the power and connection issues, but they went above and beyond,” Yu said.
‘Good stewards’
Growing up in California, junior Lisa Fung vividly remembers when 2020 wildfires turned Bay Area skies an eerie orange color for days. Experiences like this sparked her interests in wildfire mitigation research, energy, sensors, and electrical engineering. Last summer, Fung looked at wildfire risk along transmission lines as a Stanford Shultz Energy Fellow at the Western Area Power Administration within the U.S. Department of Energy.
These interests made her a perfect fit for the sensors project. “I was very interested in seeing what I could do to help mitigate this issue,” Fung said.
Fung and other members of the Stanford Radio Club worked with researchers at Lab 64, a Stanford Electrical Engineering makerspace, first assessing the sensors’ power needs. They considered everything from small batteries to solar panels to rechargeable batteries before ultimately deciding on a 50-amp, 12-volt battery for a custom-designed “SMesh” sensor that can be 3D printed at low cost.
The sensors use radio waves instead of Wi-Fi, reducing the amount of power needed and making real-time data transmission more reliable.
The team has been testing SMesh since October, including during the piloting of a BurnBot machine at the Dish, using what they learn at each burn to improve the device. Iterative improvements have included adding a sensor for wind speed, direction, and other environmental metrics; a radiation shield to control how the temperature sensor heats up; protections to the antennas; and a switch for the particulate matter sensor.
“One of the biggest draws for me is that we were moving really quickly, building so much stuff, failing a lot, and learning a lot of lessons in the first quarter,” Fung said. “It was a really exciting experience to build, immediately go out in the field to the prescribed burns, and see what works.”
Fung also enjoyed collaborating with people from across disciplines. “When we want to tackle the issue of wildfires, it really takes so many different perspectives and angles,” Fung said. “With the SMesh project, people from different backgrounds coming together really gives us a lot of insight and approaches to best solve the problem.”
Daniel Neamati, a PhD aeronautics and astronautics student, is the graduate student lead of SMesh. The luminous orange skies of 2020 California wildfires, along with growing up in Southern California, also inspired him to consider how he could help address wildfires.
As a TomKat Center Graduate Fellow for Translational Research, Neamati studies how to improve GPS accuracy using 3D models of environments and how to apply 3D models before, during, and after a prescribed burn to inform large-scale fire management.
The SMesh sensors can provide real-time data to land managers to optimize prescribed burns, address different stakeholders’ needs, and minimize smoke exposure, Neamati said.
“There’s a lot about prescribed burns that we don’t know very well yet,” Neamati said. “This helps ensure an ecosystem is able to stay healthy while we have humans living right next to it. We’re not just making a fuel break but also being good stewards of our local environment.”
It was a really exciting experience to build, immediately go out in the field to the prescribed burns, and see what works.”Lisa Fung
Going forward, the SMesh team wants to add enhancements such as more environmental indicators for a more complex understanding of volatile organic compounds. Yu said the team is working with local communities, government agencies such as CalFire, and researchers to ensure the sensors meet their needs.
The hyper-local data may be helpful for fire propagation models as well as understanding fire behavior and how vegetation, terrains, and atmospheric conditions change the way smoke disperses, she said.
“Our students want to work on something that is meaningful, and they have so much technical expertise to support sustainability and environmental health,” Yu said. “This is a huge collaboration and we couldn’t have done it without our students, community members, and agencies. It requires this kind of collaboration if we want to tackle such complex environmental problems.”
