The FireLoc System - Geolocating Forest Fires with Crowdsourced Data

Abstract

The FireLoc system aims to allow the reporting of forest fires observed by citizens using a dedicated app developed for mobile devices. The collected data includes the observer’s geolocation, a photograph of the observed event, and the orientation of the observer towards the fire. Data above are integrated into the FireLoc system, which also includes other types of georeferenced data about terrain, including, e.g., land cover and slope information. The system processes the collected data and identifies the geolocation of the observed events in almost real-time. This may enable a fast geolocation of the observed events and also assist in the monitoring of a fire progress. This short paper briefly describes the FireLoc System that comprises three components: 1) a data collection component developed for mobile platforms; 2) a data integration and processing component, which processes collected data, assesses the most probable location of the observed event considering the reliability of contributed data; 3) a component for providing information to the general public and institutions, which is developed for both mobile and desktop platforms and allows the monitoring of the reported events’ progress.