Bushfire Monitoring Case Study

Fastwave offers portable, mobile automatic weather stations for transmitting real-time meteorological data in bushfire fighting campaigns. The mobile weather stations are mounted on a folding tripod and fit into a rugged box which also contains a folding solar panel to charge the batteries. The solar panel enables the unit to operate on a stand-alone basis indefinitely. The unit fits easily into the back of a vehicle and can be hand-carried to a remote location and set up in minutes by non-technical personnel, sending real-time wind, temperature and barometric information to the fire control center. These units are used extensively across Australia during the bushfire season, and have proven to be an invaluable aid for monitoring and predicting the rapid movement of bush fire fronts.

Kevin Parkyn, Senior Meteorologist, Severe Weather Section, Australian Bureau of Meteorology said:

"Mobile weather stations are an essential emergency management resource, capable of providing a consistent set of weather observations, which are used in operational decision making to improve safety and effectiveness of fire fighting activities. During the recent wildfires over southeastern Australia, which burnt 1 million hectares over a 2 month period, several mobile weather stations were deployed. These stations provided weather observations at 10-minute intervals in short burst data format over the Iridium satellite network, providing a reliable and cost-effective means of receiving weather information from the fire ground"

The two-way capability of the Iridium short-burst data (SBD) service enables the reporting interval to be changed as the severity of the fire changes.