Wildfire ‘smelling sensors’ could help protect Oakland hills

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Oakland Fire Chief Reginald Freeman at a news conference on May 25 announces a new network of wildfire sensors being deployed in the Oakland hills.

Oakland firefighters monitor live power lines tangled within a tree knocked down by high winds along Balboa Drive in the Oakland hills in January 2021.

Richard Wong runs in Oakland's Piedmont neighborhood with the Oakland hills in the background in May 2021. A new network of wildfire smelling sensors is being tested in the densely populated hills.

While wildfire season is just beginning to ramp up in California this year after historic winter storms drenched the state and erased Bay Area drought conditions, the Oakland hills remain particularly vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires — which is why the city is testing out a new network of sensors that may help the Fire Department corral blazes before they get out of control, officials announced.

Over the last month, the city installed 10 sensors that will monitor air quality across Oakland's wildfire-prone terrain, alerting fire crews if early signs of wildfires are detected, according to a recent news release.

The pilot program, which will be in place for two years, is a partnership between the Oakland Fire Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, N5 Sensors Inc., and TechNexus Venture Collaborative.

"Early detection and suppression of fire is critical in the prevention of catastrophic wildfire" — such as the devastating 1991 Oakland hills firestorm that killed 25 people and destroyed nearly 3,500 homes, Oakland Fire Chief Reginald Freeman said in the release.

The city is "seeking out any and all strategies" to prevent wildfires, Freeman said, "whether it's by ensuring we have adequate staffing, developing new regional partnerships, acquiring new equipment and apparatus, or through new piloting of new technology that may prevent the loss of properties and save lives."

Such fire detection sensors have also been installed this year in Oregon's Willamette Valley ahead of the wildfire season.

The sensors in the Oakland hills, placed along the city's "wildland urban interface setting," are "smelling" sensors that monitor air quality, Freeman said at a May 25 news conference posted on Twitter. No audio or visual technology is included "to ensure that … privacy for our residents (is) not compromised," he said.

The sensors transmit their information back to a team at N5 Sensors through a web dashboard, officials said. If a fire is detected, the N5 Sensors team will notify the Oakland Fire Department's fire dispatch through a text, email and a dashboard that will be projected on a monitor in the department's communications center.

The Fire Department will send out a full-alarm crew if more than one sensor is detecting a fire or when a red flag warning is issued by the National Weather Service, officials said.

The project aims to test "whether these sensors and associated alert algorithm work and whether this technology can be used in an urban interface setting," according to the news release. The Department of Homeland Security is paying for the pilot phase, which includes equipment, maintenance and use of the technology, officials said.

The sensors may become another valuable fire prevention tool for Oakland, officials said, joining programs that include vegetation management, inspections, fuel mitigation and roadside clearing projects.

While the current year has been mild so far, officials noted that the past several years have included some of the worst wildfire seasons in California history. In 2020 alone, fires burned 4.3 million acres, destroyed more than 11,000 structures and killed 33 people, according to Cal Fire.

"Climate change and extreme weather are lengthening wildfire seasons — and putting more communities and properties at risk," said N5 Sensors’ CEO Abhishek Motayed in a statement.

"In a world with these rapidly changing environmental threats, we work every day so that everyone can access the right information at the right time to stay safe," he said.

Reach Jessica Flores: [email protected]; Twitter: @jesssmflores