Circle-based approximation to forest fires with distributed wireless sensor networks

Disaster management is one of the most promising application fields of wireless sensor networks. In this work we focus on forest fire fighting operations. The role of the sensor network deployed in this scenario will consist in obtaining a representation (or a model) of the fire fronts, and distribute it to the firefighters in the area, in such a way they are aware of the risks they are assuming at each time. To achieve it, sensor nodes are able to determine their position, to detect the presence of fire (by monitoring the evolution of the ambient temperature), and to distribute this information wirelessly through the network. In this way, each firefighter maintains a fire representation consisting of a list of circles centered at the received positions. In this paper, we propose and analyze three criteria to assign the size of these circles. Simulation results show that a dynamic approach based on network density perceived by a node detecting fire offers an accurate approximation to the forest fire, without introducing a significant overhead.