Abstract: A method for the automated early detection of forest fires by means of the optical detection of clouds of smoke, includes the following steps: producing images by means of at least one digital color-image camera and transmitting said images to a digital data processing medium; defining membership functions in a fuzzy-logic system for the classes “smoke,” “forest,” and “dark surface” by evaluating a plurality of test images or test sequences recorded by the color-image camera with respect to the saturation value (S) of the image pixel.

Abstract: Disclosed are processes for the centralised monitoring of territories to recognize forest and surface fires. A swiveling and tiltable camera installed at a monitoring site supplies images of overlapping observation sectors. In each observation sector a sequence of images includes a plurality of images is taken, at an interval which corresponds to fire and smoke dynamics. An on-site image-processing software supplies event warnings with indication of the position of the event site in the analysed image. A total image and an image sequence with image sections of the event site are then transmitted to a central station and reproduced at the central station as a continuous sequence in quick-motion mode. Event warnings with relevant data are blended into electronic maps at the central station. Cross-bearing is made possible by blending event warnings from adjacent monitoring sites. False alarms are minimized by marking known false alarm sources as exclusion zones.

Abstract: The monitoring of territories in order to recognize forest and surface fires requires complex automatic and human-assisted processes, which ultimately must include the control of intervention forces. Disclosed are processes for the centralised monitoring of territories. A swiveling and tiltable camera installed at a monitoring site supplies images of overlapping observation sectors. In each observation sector a sequence of images comprising a plurality of images is taken, at an interval which corresponds to fire and smoke dynamics. An on-site image-processing software supplies event warnings with indication of the position of the event site in the analysed image. A total image and an image sequence with image sections of the vent site are then transmitted to a central station and reproduced at the central station as an endless sequence in quick-motion mode. Event warnings with all relevant data can be blended into electronic maps at the central station.