Wildfire Monitoring and Detection System Using Wireless Sensor Network: A Case Study of Tanzania

Abstract

This paper proposes a wildfire monitoring and detection system based on wireless sensor network. This system detects fire by monitoring surrounding temperature, humidity and smoke. Once fire is detected, a warning message containing probable location of that fire is immediately sent to the responsible authority over cellular network. In order for the system to be more effective, communities living near forests or national parks can send warning messages through the same system to the responsible authority using their mobile handsets once they witness wildfire or illegal activities. For the system to be fully functional, the only requirement is the availability of cellular network coverage in forests or national parks to enable short message services to take place. The system prototype is developed using Arduino microcontroller, several sensors to detect temperature, relative humidity and smoke as well as wireless network connection modules. At the control center Telerivet messaging platform is used to design the messaging service. The experimental results justify the capability of the proposed system in detecting wildfire in real time.