Fire suppression in the united states is currently a multibillion dollar endeavor annually

Geometric Data Analytics Inc. received a $174,836 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture to improve wildland firefighting capabilities. Funded through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212), Geometric Data Analytics will place satellite-connected sensors in remote wildfire regions to gather and release real-time environmental data to firefighters and fire behavior modelers. This will enhance situational awareness and safety during wildland fire responses while also improving fire prediction capabilities through more accurate, field-level data inputs. The company will also model communication constraints across fire areas to advise firefighters on signal coverage and increase incident commanders' ability to strategically enhance communications. The products and data captured are intended to ultimately reduce annual wildland fire suppression costs on taxpayers while decreasing risks to lives and property through improved wildland firefighting efficiency and safety.

Wildland fires pose additional challenges as situational awareness and communication are especially complicated in remote regions without cell service amid often mountainous terrain. Furthermore, the unpredictability of wildfires complicates wildland firefighting teams' ability to prepare appropriate responses. GDA seeks to improve real-time situational awareness, safety, and coordination of fire management activities as well as improve the ability of firefighters to communicate in the field. Additionally, GDA seeks to improve the ability to accurately model fire behavior through improved access to real-time data.by placing satellite-connected sensors in the field, GDA will gather and release real-time environmental data. These products would be immediately useful to firefighters in the field to quickly know about changing conditions, for example winds, as well as for fire modelers to use these more accurate, on-the-ground data inputs, improving fire prediction capabilities. GDA will also model communication constraints over the extent of a fire. This will allow firefighters to know beforehand where they will be out of communication and where to go to most rapidly regain a signal. In addition, incident commanders will be able to make more informed decisions about how to best increase communication capabilities in and around a fire.with these capabilities, GDA hopes to improve wildland firefighting capabilities both in terms of efficiency and safety. This would reduce annual fire suppression costs on taxpayers. Most importantly, this would reduce the risk of loss of life and property. Furthermore, the data captured by these satellite-connected sensors would be preserved, so over many years of fires, larger datasets could be built that would hopefully improve the country's fire modeling and therefore firefighting capabilities over time.