AbdulRahman F AlFozan
Ibn Baz High School, Dammam, Eastern, SAUDI ARABIA
This research project (Smart Fire Detector, shortly named SFD) aims to find an alternative solution for traditional methods used for automatic reporting of fire incidents by utilizing the existing technologies of Google Earth and GPS in a short time and specific location of the fire.
Delayed fire incidents reports or inaccurate reporting information (including location) could result in late arrival of firemen, increased number of fatalities and extended damages to facilities and homes.
SFD system consists of report sender device (hardware) and report receiver program (software). The report sender is a modified smoke detector retrofitted with an external electronic circuit that sends a wireless signal to an intermediate receiver box (containing a dialing circuit) once a fire is detected.
The intermediate receiver box (installed in facility) dials in a predefined emergency phone number (i.e. civil defense or related fire response authority) to report fire at once. At the fire authority, the phone call is received via a receiver system (consists of a computer and a special programmed software). This system identifies the caller ID and retrieves the coordinates from the customer`s database. The system then obtains accurate location promptly using Google Earth.
It was found that, fire detectors reduced average time needed for acknowledgment of fire to less than one minute (20%) and less than two minutes (80%). This is a significant improvement compared to human detecting by visual observation. It was also noted that SFD reduced the time used in the process of reporting to less than 30 seconds (10%) and less than one minute (90%). This is a significant improvement compared to human reporting using phone calling.
SFD also showed very accurate location reporting due to utilization of GPS and Google Earth (proven technologies) to locate fire sites.