New Technology Helps Firefighters Detect Small Forest Fires

Wildfire season is scorching forests around the globe and causing billions of dollars in damage.

But German scientists have developed special sensors to catch forest fires before the spread out of control.

Jurgen Muller knows where there's smoke, there is fire.

His company, Dryad Networks, developed a sensor to sniff out flames so firefighters can snuff them out before they grow.

"We're making a fire to test our sensors to see how sensitive they are," says Muller while lighting a small fire in a grill in the middle of a forest near Bradenburg, Germany.

Hundreds of the devices, dubbed "electronic noses," dot the forest. The solar-powered sensors scan the landscape, and a built-in detector identifies gasses emitted by a fire.

In his lab, Muller uses artificial intelligence to teach the device to distinguish smoke from different types of burning trees. "They now sniff out smoke from a pine or beech forest then A.I. maps this pattern," he says.

The sensors can spot a fire in minutes. And with scientists blaming climate change for bigger and faster-moving fires, forest manager Raimund Engel says this technology is protecting his lands.

"In recent years, we've reduced the number of fires because this early detection system can alert us before any major damage," he says.

Dryad Networks says 10 countries including the US, Greece, and Spain are already experimenting with the sensors.

The company hopes to install 120 million of so-called 'electric noses' worldwide by 2030.