The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph by Robert Scheer

California Department of Forestry Capt. Gary Rogers sets fire to grassland near Guadalupe Reservoir last week. Planes based at NASA flew over the blaze with infrared sensors, relaying information about the controlled fire to a command post.

On Fire

Consortium turns a high-tech hose on wildÞres

By Lester Chang

When it comes to putting out volatile and massive wildfires, Sunnyvale wants to show the rest of California and other western states how to do it best--meshing firefighters with high-tech wizardry.

That was demonstrated June 4, when a NASA jet plane with infrared-sensing equipment and computers worked to help up to 50 firefighters extinguish a controlled fire on six acres within the Sierra Azule Open Space Preserve, south of Los Gatos.

The plane circled over the burn site and sent images of the fire to a command post with computers and television monitors at Moffett Field, where fire officials mapped out a strategy to combat the blaze.

"This is the 21st-century way of fighting fires. It is the way to go," said Santa Clara County assistant fire chief Ben Lopes.

In and around a tent at the command post were a communication satellite disk, a hazardous-material truck with computers and Internet capability and a truck that could be used to remove toxic materials.

Also at the ready were six "global-positioning system" devices, which can help find people who are lost in the wilderness, and a paging system that could be placed in homes and could warn people about approaching fires and floods.

The exercise was part of "Project Wildfire," which showed how firefighters or rescue workers can be used effectively and efficiently during disasters, including earthquakes and flooding.

The drill, repeated June 5 in an area around the Guadalupe Reservoir in San Jose, was supported by the California Highway to Space Economic Development and Technology Investment Program, which is managed by the California Department of Transportation Spaceport Office.

During the drill, the Silicon Valley Defense Space Consortium promoted the idea of creating the "Western Disaster Center" at the site of the Onizuka Air Station, which the Department of Defense decided in 1995 to reduce in size.

The federal agency, which runs the air station, has made no decision yet on whether to allow such a project at the base, said Air Force spokesman Art Haubold.

The consortium, a nonprofit group that promotes economic development in Santa Clara Valley, said the disaster center will have invaluable information and high-tech resources that could help communities in western states that have been hit by natural disasters.

The expertise of federal contractors that work at the base could be used in such emergencies, said Tim Quigley, the consortium's president and chief operating officer.

"We would have the use of Department of Defense planes or satellites; that can be very helpful," he said.

The drill showed that the plane was an important link in the system. The plane flew out of Moffett and climbed to an elevation of 5,000 feet over the burn site.

It collected information about the fire at 11:15 a.m., showing the size of the blaze. A mapping system showed the valleys and hills in the area--key information that would tell firefighters what else they might encounter, Lopes said.

A computer, modem and phone sent the information to a cell-phone tower in San Jose, and then to the NASA Ames Research Center. The data, which would be used for planning strategy, was then sent to computers at the control center.

The plane sent back information three more times within an hour.

The updated information would help save more lives and property than is possible with current methods for fighting large grass fires in California, Lopes said.

Currently, the heads of fire departments meet once in the morning and assign their men to attack a certain part of a fire, and they keep in touch via cellular phones or radios that have limited communication range, Lopes said.

The firefighters then meet the following morning and resume efforts to put out the fire, he said.

With new informationprovided by high-tech equipment every 15 minutes or so, firefighters won't duplicate efforts and will know how to put out a fire in the safest way and in the shortest time, Lopes said.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 11, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.