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NASA and the U.S. Coast Guard are jointly developing a lightweight, helicopter-transportable, completely self-contained firefighting module for combating shipboard and dockside fires. The project draws upon NASA technology in high-capacity rocket engine pumps, lightweight materials and compact packaging.
In 1967, NASA contracted with Celanese Corporation, of New York, to develop a line of PBI textiles for use in space suits and vehicles. In 2005, the PBI fiber and polymer business was sold to PBI Performance Products Inc., of Charlotte, North Carolina, under the ownership of the InterTech Group, of North Charleston, South Carolina. PBI Performance Products now offers two distinct lines: PBI, the original heat and flame resistant fiber; and Celazole, a family of high-temperature PBI polymers available in true polymer form. PBI is now used in numerous firefighting, military, motor sports, and other applications.
High Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS) are emerging aircraft and balloon-type technology that can host payloads and provide services from the stratosphere. One potential HAPS use case is to provide wireless communication services for mobile devices, such as LTE, to wildland firefighters who often operate in locations without terrestrial wireless communications coverage. In this research we analyze historical wildland fire data to provide estimates of the annual number of HAPS required to support a fire season. We apply agglomerative clustering to group historical daily satellite-based fire observations where each cluster is analogous to a required HAPS vehicle. Our lower and upper bound estimates span a range of years, communication payload footprints, the minimum days of clusters prior to launch, and categories of fires. Additionally, we consider a case where HAPS vehicles can be transferred between fires after the initial fire has dissipated. In our specific case study from 2022 “Significant” fires (greater than 40,000 acres), we approximate that either 8 balloon HAPS vehicles without considering overprovisioning for station-keeping limitations or 23 fixed-wing aircraft would be required. Overprovisioning can scale the estimate for balloon vehicles based on reader preference, and for reference, Google Loon overprovisioned by 5-10x. Furthermore, in the case where budgets are constrained and not all of the estimated HAPS vehicles can be acquired, we provide operational insight on where to deploy HAPS vehicles. Generally, in the Spring months we see that HAPS vehicles are needed in the south and southeast of the US which transitions to the north and west as the fire season progresses.
The FBS Program indicated that applications of advanced technology can result in an improved FBS that will satisfy the requirements defined by municipal fire departments. To accomplish this technology transfer, a substantial commitment of resources over an extended period of time has been required. This program has indicated that the ability of NASA in terms of program management such as requirement definition, system analysis, and industry coordination may play as important a role as specific sources of hardware technology. As a result of the FBS program, a sequence of milestones was passed that may have applications as generalized milestones and objectives for any technical application program.
System, based on open-loop demand-type compressed air concept, is lighter and less bulky than former systems, yet still provides thirty minutes of air supply. Comfort, visibility, donning time, and breathing resistance have been improved. Apparatus is simple to recharge and maintain and is comparable in cost to previously available systems.
For abstract, see N76-12741.
The design of the prototype protective ensemble was finalized. Prototype ensembles were fabricated and then subjected to a series of qualification tests which were based upon the protective ensemble performance standards PEPS requirements. Engineering drawings and purchase specifications were prepared for the new protective ensemble.
Several aspects of crew training are shown including bailout exercises from the CCT and in the Weightless Environment Training Facility.
An exploratory human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted to investigate and characterize a Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT) Assistant to support a remote operator of multiple small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) using a ground control station (GCS) in the context of a wildland fire surveillance mission. Operator performance using the GCS with the HAT Assistant (Assisted Mode) was compared to operator performance using the GCS without the HAT Assistant (Unassisted Mode) during two types of contingency-event scenarios (Low and High Complexity). In the Assisted Mode, the HAT Assistant provided updates to the level of risk to the mission along with recommendations for risk mitigation, which were not provided in the Unassisted Mode. No significant differences in objective performance and subjective ratings of workload, situation awareness, and trust in automation between the Assisted and Unassisted Modes were detected, however there were indications that participants preferred the Assisted GCS over the Unassisted GCS and directions for further development were explored. Additional work is necessary to further refine the HAT Assistant and better characterize its effects on remote operator performance while managing multiple sUAS assets. Future work is recommended to optimize the implementation of an assistant to support operator performance during different missions and across vehicle classes.
An exploratory human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted to investigate and characterize a Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT) Assistant to support a remote operator of multiple small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) using a ground control station (GCS) in the context of a wildland fire surveillance mission. Operator performance using the GCS with the HAT Assistant (Assisted Mode) was compared to operator performance using the GCS without the HAT Assistant (Unassisted Mode) during two types of contingency-event scenarios (Low and High Complexity). In the Assisted Mode, the HAT Assistant provided updates to the level of risk to the mission along with recommendations for risk mitigation, which were not provided in the Unassisted Mode. No significant differences in objective performance and subjective ratings of workload, situation awareness, and trust in automation between the Assisted and Unassisted Modes were detected, however there were indications that participants preferred the Assisted GCS over the Unassisted GCS and directions for further development were explored. Additional work is necessary to further refine the HAT Assistant and better characterize its effects on remote operator performance while managing multiple sUAS assets. Future work is recommended to optimize the implementation of an assistant to support operator performance during different missions and across vehicle classes
As wildfires continue to increase in number and severity due to global warming, firefighters are having a harder time combating them safely. This paper examines the application of Autonomous Biodegradable Self-sacrificing (ABS) Drones as a method of fighting wildfires that decreases the number of lives put at risk and proposes a sustainable alternative to current aerial firefighting methods. When a fire is detected or predicted through satellite imagery, ABS Drones are dispatched from firefighting stations or aerial watchtowers to fly towards designated areas and release fire retardants, preventing the fire from further spreading. The most significant feature of this drone is its ability to complete its mission without having to worry about returning safely because ABS Drones are designed to crash and release fire retardants, while not further harming the environment with water-based lithium-ion batteries and a biodegradable body. ABS Drones make it safer for firefighters as it gives firefighters one less life-threatening task to do and allows them to focus on putting out the fire. This solution aims to tackle the unpredictable nature of wildfires that often threaten the safety of firefighters and civilian communities.
Firefighters want to go to work, do their job well, and go home alive and uninjured. For their most important job, saving lives, firefighters want protective equipment that will allow more extended and effective time at fire scenes in order to perform victim search and rescue. A team, including engineers at NASA JSC and firefighters from Houston, has developed a list of problem areas for which NASA technology and know-how can recommend improvements for firefighter suits and gear. Prototypes for solutions have been developed and are being evaluated. This effort will spin back to NASA as improvements for lunar and planetary suits.
The System Wide Safety (SWS) Safety Demonstrator (SD) Series drives development of an increasingly capable In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) focusing on humanitarian applications, starting with wildfire response (SD-1). The goals of this report are to (1) provide an early hazard analysis and mitigation evaluation of wildfire response to support these efforts and (2) provide a demonstration of capabilities of the Fault Model Design Tools (fmdtools) and Manager for Intelligent Knowledge Access (MIKA) tools. fmdtools provides a modeling, simulation, and resiliency analysis framework in which a wildfire response model, the System Modeling and Analysis of Resiliency in Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (SMARt-STEReO), is built. MIKA is an intelligent knowledge manager with several capabilities, including assisting in hazard analysis by extracting and analyzing hazards from historical incident reports. The following topics are covered in the report: Understanding Wildfire Hazard Dynamics. We provide a description and simulated examples of how hazards occur in the SMARt-STEReO model of wildfire response and their effect on its outcome. This provides a common mental model and focuses the analysis presented in the remainder of the report. Wildfire Hazard Identification. MIKA identifies wildfire hazards from three relevant datasets: the ICS-209-PLUS, SAFECOM, and SAFENET. Hazards are manually organized into a taxonomy and MIKA analyzes each hazard’s effects, likelihood, severity, and risk. Evaluating Mitigation Strategies. The SMARt-STEReO wildfire response model built in fmdtools evaluates a subset of identified hazards. Specifically, we simulate the effect of communications faults and equipment faults on operator safety, the effect of changing winds and flammability, and a scenario with multiple ignition points and heavy smoke. Tool Limitations and Usage Considerations. We provide a discussion of appropriate tool use cases as well as limitations and considerations for usage. The tool findings are used to synthesize recommendations for wildfire response operations, which can be captured as part of an IASMS. Key recommendations are as follows: Hazards are identified from a broad spectrum of sources including aircraft subsystems, operational sources, and ground crew operations. Highest risk operational environment hazards identified are Evacuations. The highest risk manned aerial operations hazard categorized is Jumper Operations Mishap. Ground crew hazards that are highest risk are Burns, Cargo Operations Overhead, Dehydration, Entrapment, Falling Objects, Heart Attacks, Heat Exhaustion, Inadequate Training or Certification, Vehicle Breakdown, and Vehicle Collision. Modelled containment failures arise from a mismatch between the difficulty of the firefighting scenario and the capacity (e.g., speed, effectiveness, awareness) of the response. In firefighting scenarios where containment is possible (e.g., because the fire does not spread too quickly), these mismatches can occur because of a change in environmental conditions (e.g., wind, flammability, etc) or because of planning, equipment, or communications faults. Improvements to communications increase the capacity of the firefighting response by reducing the time needed to respond to the fire. While surveillance does not increase this capacity by itself, it increases operator safety by increasing state awareness, enabling firefighters to evade approaching fires. Increasing both has a synergistic effect. In general, these performance and resilience increases generalize over fault scenarios as well as unforeseen changes to circumstances (i.e., wind, aridity, etc.). However, these improvements need to be designed so as not to make the system prone to persistent large-scale communications outages, which can reduce performance.
Efforts are under way to develop data-acquisition, data-processing, and data-communication systems for monitoring disasters over large geographic areas by use of uninhabited aerial systems (UAS) robotic aircraft that are typically piloted by remote control. As integral parts of advanced, comprehensive disaster- management programs, these systems would provide (1) real-time data that would be used to coordinate responses to current disasters and (2) recorded data that would be used to model disasters for the purpose of mitigating the effects of future disasters and planning responses to them. The basic idea is to equip UAS with sensors (e.g., conventional video cameras and/or multispectral imaging instruments) and to fly them over disaster areas, where they could transmit data by radio to command centers. Transmission could occur along direct line-of-sight paths and/or along over-the-horizon paths by relay via spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. The initial focus is on demonstrating systems for monitoring wildfires; other disasters to which these developments are expected to be applicable include floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, leaks of toxic chemicals, and military attacks. The figure depicts a typical system for monitoring a wildfire. In this case, instruments aboard a UAS would generate calibrated thermal-infrared digital image data of terrain affected by a wildfire. The data would be sent by radio via satellite to a data-archive server and image-processing computers. In the image-processing computers, the data would be rapidly geo-rectified for processing by one or more of a large variety of geographic-information- system (GIS) and/or image-analysis software packages. After processing by this software, the data would be both stored in the archive and distributed through standard Internet connections to a disaster-mitigation center, an investigator, and/or command center at the scene of the fire. Ground assets (in this case, firefighters and/or firefighting equipment) would also be monitored in real time by use of Global Positioning System (GPS) units and radio communication links between the assets and the UAS. In this scenario, the UAS would serve as a data-relay station in the sky, sending packets of information concerning the locations of assets to the image-processing computer, wherein this information would be incorporated into the geo-rectified images and maps. Hence, the images and maps would enable command-center personnel to monitor locations of assets in real time and in relation to locations affected by the disaster. Optionally, in case of a disaster that disrupted communications, the UAS could be used as an airborne communication relay station to partly restore communications to the affected area. A prototype of a system of this type was demonstrated in a project denoted the First Response Experiment (Project FiRE). In this project, a controlled outdoor fire was observed by use of a thermal multispectral scanning imager on a UAS that delivered image data to a ground station via a satellite uplink/ downlink telemetry system. At the ground station, the image data were geo-rectified in nearly real time for distribution via the Internet to firefighting managers. Project FiRE was deemed a success in demonstrating several advances essential to the eventual success of the continuing development effort.
A flashover occurs when a fire spreads very rapidly through crevices due to intense heat. Flashovers present one of the most frightening and challenging fire phenomena to those who regularly encounter them: firefighters. Firefighters’ safety and lives often depend on their ability to predict flashovers before they occur. Typical pre-flashover fire characteristics include dark smoke, high heat, and rollover (“angel fingers”) and can be quantified by color, size, and shape. Using a color video stream from a firefighter’s body camera, we applied generative adversarial neural networks for image enhancement. The neural networks were trained to enhance very dark fire and smoke patterns in videos and monitor dynamic changes in smoke and fire areas. Preliminary tests with limited flashover training videos showed that we predicted a flashover as early as 55 seconds before it occurred.
Various sizes and types of aircraft are envisioned to play a critical role in fighting fires. Multiple aircraft, including drones, operating simultaneously to fight fires requires coordination to maintain effectiveness as well as safety. Presently, firefighting is limited to day time, high visibility, and low wind conditions. It is also impacted if unmanned aircraft system operates in the area or nearby. NASA is exploring opportunities where a variety of aircraft and their coordinated airspace management would improve the effectiveness of aerial firefighting. Dr. Kopardekar will discuss future aircraft requirements, approach for coordinated firefighting as well as a path towards improving effectiveness.
Wildfires have become increasingly frequent, widespread, intense, and destructive. The 2021 NASA Academy at Langley Research Center was given the task of applying NASA technology to the challenges faced by wildland firefighting professionals. The Equipment Development Team focused on developing tools that could be deployed to make the work of wildland firefighters safer and more effective. The team developed both a conceptual design and a prototype of a lightweight respirator with air cooling capabilities. The team also researched body-worn biometric and environmental sensors, identifying a suite of sensors that could predict and alert firefighters to dangerous physical and environmental conditions. This report outlines the results of these activities, and analyzes each component of the systems, identifying challenges, possible technological solutions, and their feasibility.
Wildfires are expected to become more common and more severe in the Arctic states due to climate change. Main cause for the fires is human activity, even in the boreal and Arctic forests. Therefore, activities such forest management and tourism, together with firefighting capacity and readiness, can have a significant impact on future wildfire risks and impacts. To assess the impacts of these factors we have created pathways for future wildfires up to 2050 for the Arctic states. We explore high and low fire activity and risk pathways for all the Arctic states and suggest most our best guess pathways for each state separately. The low activity and fire risk pathway assumes active fire suppression via population participation and official land management, efficient fuel treatments to reduce fire risk, and active firefighting. The high activity and fire risk pathway assumes the opposite due to lack of government and community response, with addition of lacking response to climate-driven changes to wildfire risks. In the Nordic countries, human ignition sources, such as timber extraction, tourism, summer cottages, and expanding wildland-urban intermix due to exurban growth may increase. In addition to these in Canada and Alaska, expansion of agriculture increases the likelihood of open burning of agricultural waste, increasing risk of the fire spreading to wildlands. Drier fuels due to climate change increase the risk of fires, and there is a growing risk of extreme heat conditions, creating favorable conditions for extreme wildfires from any ignition source. Throughout the Arctic lightning is expected to increase, increasing the risk of tundra (specifically grassland) fires, with potential to occur in hard-to-reach locations for firefighting. In short, policy actions and education play a crucial role in future wildfire management and adaptation.