Forest Weather Station: Advancing Forest Fire Prevention from "Foot Patrols" to "Cloud Surveillance"

In the past, forest fire prevention and fighting work relied heavily on rangers' "foot patrols in the mountains". Every day, rangers shuttled through the mountains and forests, keeping an eye out for potential fire hazards and illegal fire-use behaviors. However, this method is inefficient and greatly affected by terrain and weather. The terrain in mountainous areas is complex, with remote areas being difficult to reach. In severe weather such as heavy rain and heavy fog, patrol work becomes even more arduous. Moreover, due to limited manpower, it is difficult to achieve all-round and real-time monitoring, and fire hazards are easily missed.

With the development of science and technology, the Forest Weather Station has moved from "foot patrols in the mountains" to "cloud monitoring", opening a new chapter in forest fire prevention and fighting. Comprehensive monitoring stations for forest fire risk factors have been built in many places, relying on advanced Internet of Things and intelligent sensing technologies, becoming the "smart brain" of forest fire prevention and fighting. These monitoring stations can collect various parameters of the forest ecosystem in real-time, including meteorological parameters such as air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation, as well as forest environmental factors such as soil temperature and soil moisture. By analyzing these data, scientific basis is provided for forest fire prevention, transforming fire risk early warning from relying on experience and "guesswork" in the past to accurate "measurement".

Hundreds of comprehensive monitoring stations for forest and grassland fire risk factors have been set up in many places, covering important forest areas and grasslands in counties and districts with medium and high fire risks. Through public networks and satellites, monitoring data is transmitted back to the system in real-time, and fire risk analysis reports are automatically generated. Compared with the previous early warning that only relied on meteorological monitoring data, the means are more diversified, and more attention is paid to changes in forest vegetation.

In addition to fire risk factor monitoring stations, thousands of high-point video surveillance systems have been built in key forest fire prevention areas in many places. Equipped with AI analysis functions, this system can monitor in real-time through video images and infrared thermal imaging. Once a suspected forest fire is detected, it will automatically alarm, allowing on-duty personnel to check for hidden dangers in a timely manner, which greatly improves the efficiency of fire detection and transforms forest fire prevention and fighting work from "human prevention" to "technical prevention".

The addition of drones has further improved monitoring efficiency. Since the launch of the drone patrol system in some areas, it has successfully intercepted many cases of illegal fire use, shortened the emergency response time, and doubled the patrol efficiency compared with manual work. During the day, drones can accurately lock the fire source with centimeter-level positioning and track those who use fire illegally; at night, they can capture high-temperature dangerous areas above 70℃ through thermal imaging. Equipped with an intelligent voice system, they can also play fire prevention prompts cyclically in key areas to strengthen the effect of fire prevention publicity.

A variety of scientific and technological means work together to build a "sky, air, ground, and network" integrated forest fire monitoring system, forming a solid intelligent defense line for forest fire prevention and fighting. In the future, with the continuous progress of science and technology, the Forest Weather Station will continue to upgrade, playing a greater role in protecting forest resources and maintaining ecological security.