Re:Time is ripe for fire detection satellite, say Berkeley s...
by anigbrowl on Friday November 15, 2013 @10:38PM
(#6743475)
You'd need a lot of UAVs to cover the whole west coast.
I'm not sure why you'd want to restrict coverage to daylight hours; camping fires are more likely to be lit at night so early spotting makes sense. Likewise I'm not sure you'd want to restrict observation to the summer months, since dry winters are common here and winter wildires are not unknown (eg there was a large one in CO in March of 2011). I don't know whether climate change is a major factor in wildfire incidence year over year, but drier conditions are the sort of effect predicted by theory.
But my main objection is about the size of the observation area. When you take in the # of UAVs, the launch/landing facilities, the fuel costs, the air traffic control overhead, and the data correlation requirements, the satellite doesn't sound so expensive after all.
I'm not sure why you'd want to restrict coverage to daylight hours; camping fires are more likely to be lit at night so early spotting makes sense. Likewise I'm not sure you'd want to restrict observation to the summer months, since dry winters are common here and winter wildires are not unknown (eg there was a large one in CO in March of 2011). I don't know whether climate change is a major factor in wildfire incidence year over year, but drier conditions are the sort of effect predicted by theory.
But my main objection is about the size of the observation area. When you take in the # of UAVs, the launch/landing facilities, the fuel costs, the air traffic control overhead, and the data correlation requirements, the satellite doesn't sound so expensive after all.