[Athens, Greece] Huawei and partners National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and the start-up PROBOTEK have successfully tested a forest fire prevention system in Greece.
The partners tested the real-time detection system using a smoke and fire simulation. The solution, developed under Huawei’s TECH4ALL initiative, will enable emergency services to respond to potential forest fires within 15 minutes, the timeframe within which fire risks can be best controlled.
“For the past 20 years, Huawei has introduced leading technologies to Greece, believing in the power of innovation to protect the environment, preserve biodiversity, and ensure the safety of citizens and their property,” said Ren Fujun, CEO of the Southeast European Region of Huawei.
With hot, dry, and windy summers, the Greek mainland and its islands are highly susceptible to outbreaks of large-scale forest fires. Given the impact of climate change, fire outbreaks in Greece are increasing in number and frequency every year, causing potentially permanent impact on natural ecosystems and posing increased risk of human casualties and property damage.
Conducted by NKUA and PROBOTEK, the smoke and fire simulation test took place at NKUA’s premises in a forested area of Athens. Connected by Huawei’s network technologies, sensors in the forest prompted the command center to deploy an automated drone to the test site.
Based on video footage transmitted by the drone coupled with meteorological and geomorphological data, AI analysis was able to identify fire and smoke events in real time and predict:
- The fire’s path and area it would cover
- The time it would take to reach inhabited areas
- Which areas would be at risk from fires and require evacuation
- Information about evacuation routes
The emergency response system comprises an AI-based command center networked to 5G-connected drones and sensors that detect particles in the air, CO2, temperature, wind direction and speed.
The first phase of the solution, which was introduced in 2022 in Syggrou Estate near Athens, used drones and AI to detect fires. The new solution extends the system’s functionality to provide fire spread analysis, evacuation planning, and route planning for fire trucks and ambulances. It can also estimate how many people in the area will be affected by the fire, and send personalized notifications via an app to residents’ phones, suggesting evacuation routes based on the municipality’s civil protection plans.
The solution as a whole will enable rapid-response evacuation protocols that will save lives and mitigate the extensive damage to land and property that wildfires typically cause.
A demonstration of the solution in action is featured in Connecting with Nature, the 3rd episode of Discovery’s documentary “Being Digi-Sapiens”. Social media influencer Simone Giertz visits the PROBOTEK team in Athens and witnesses the precision of the system first-hand, including how the sensors are triggered and drones deployed.
