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How to make people happier by more "intelligent" fire fighting

The fire rushed into the sky, and it was the unmanned aerial vehicle "firefighter" who rushed into the fire at the first time.

It rises in the air with ease, avoiding the fire of "flapping teeth", and "clairvoyance" penetrates the flames to find the fire point hidden in the deep of the building.

Even in the dark night, it can still complete the task. The UAV "firefighter" is equipped with an infrared thermal imager, which can lock the position of the fire point through the temperature difference and transmit it to the rear at the first time.

It is not willing to be only an aerial scout, but to be a real fireman. It can fly directly to the top of the fire, drop fire retardant bombs, and put out the fire on the ground at the first time in the violent explosion.

This is a scene of the future fire protection at the International Fire Safety and Emergency Rescue Technical Equipment Exhibition held in Tianjin recently. At the smart fire protection summit forum held at the same time, experts and enterprise representatives from the national fire protection industry sat together to discuss: where is the smart fire protection road?

"Eye of Fire" can give instant video alarm of small fires. Big data and supercomputing have been able to calculate the time and place of fire. Now smart fire protection has become an important part of smart city construction, directly affecting the safety and development of everyone in the city. On October 10, 2017, the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security issued the Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of "Smart Fire Protection", which clearly proposed to rely on the construction of "smart cities", actively develop smart fire protection platforms, and use emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data to improve smart fire protection.

All kinds of new technologies are constantly emerging. How should smart fire control develop in the future? Can urban management keep up with the speed of technological development? How to build an intelligent fire safety system to make it fit the development of smart cities and make people live safer and happier? This became a hot topic among the participants.

Fire protection steps into the era of Internet of Things

The fire is merciless. Who will protect the lives of the firefighters who attack the fire? At the exhibition, a set of intelligent Internet of Things air call system helped firefighters wear the armor of technology.

Air breathing apparatus, handheld terminal, sign bracelet, video transmission, thermal imager, etc., a whole set of protective equipment is connected into a control "brain". It transmits the vital signs of each firefighter and the real-time changes of the fire scene to the rear remote command center, while transmitting the instructions from the rear to each firefighter at any time.

It seems that this is an intelligent positive pressure air respirator, which can send fresh and clean air into the mouth of firefighters at any time to isolate all kinds of toxic gases around. However, it is also a mini intelligent assistant for firefighters. Through the handheld terminal, it can prompt cylinder pressure, remaining service time, fire site temperature, battery power, signal strength and other information at any time. At the same time, it can sense the situation of surrounding team-mates. In case of any fall, insufficient residual gas and other abnormalities, it will immediately report to the surrounding team-mates for quick assistance.

Liu Jinshan, regional director of Tianjin Ze'antai Fire Protection Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that this is an air call system based on Internet of Things technology, which integrates air call information display device, personal respirator, and field strength search and rescue device, "to maximize the safety of firefighters on fire."

"What the scene needs, the fire control should solve what", which is an ideal "combination of prevention and elimination" smart scene in the era of Internet of Things, with effectiveness as the core, in the heart of Zhao Xuedong, chairman of the Internet of Things Branch of China Communications Industry Association.

In fact, in the field of fire protection, the Internet of Things is not a new concept. He said that with the iterative progress of technology, people's understanding of the Internet of Things for fire protection has gone through several stages.

"Previously, networking was the core. They all installed sprinklers, connected the host of the equipment, and also tried remote monitoring." Zhao Xuedong talked about a common confusion at that time. What could they do with connecting these equipment? Everyone was confused and did not know how to use them. Finally, the end users were dissatisfied. "You installed them for me and charged me. What's the use for me?" In other words, there is no real solution to the problem.

Now a common situation is to "pay more attention to prevention than to elimination". For example, in the past, the fire passage was blocked and moved away when someone came to check. Now, with sensor sensors, no one can temporarily cram. "At present, there are many devices focusing on how to prevent, and the regulatory effect has indeed improved, but there is a lack of intelligent application in the phase of 'elimination'."

He analyzed the four major problems exposed by major domestic fires, namely, the serious lack of fire information, and the rescue data is limited to two-dimensional plane; Fire scene detection means are scarce, and rescue workers have weak disaster perception ability; Battle command relies excessively on experience; Difficulty in dispatching combat forces.

These are all practical problems that have been puzzling the fire rescue. After firefighters enter the fire scene, they often do not know the site conditions, and there are great unknown risks. "Where are dangerous goods and unknown facilities? How do firemen locate and contact with the outside world?" Zhao Xuedong said that the traditional methods are prone to problems now, and a series of problems need to be solved, such as self-organized networks among firefighters and real-time video transmission at the fire scene. "A lot of technical innovation is urgently needed."

Opportunities and challenges brought by intelligent fire control

In China, 80% of the fatal fires are not those major ones. They often occur in "nine small places", namely small shopping malls, primary schools (kindergartens), small hospitals, small restaurants, small hotels, small places for singing and dancing, small Internet cafes, small beauty baths, small production and processing enterprises, etc. You Shengzhan, a fire expert, said that these places have weak fire safety awareness, inadequate safety measures, serious potential safety problems, and are densely populated. Once an accident occurs, it will cause heavy casualties. "The Internet of Things, especially the development of intelligent fire control, can solve the problem of small fires killing people."

Experts from Tsinghua University demonstrated the intelligent integrated command and dispatching platform. In short, this is a fire fighting dispatching system. From the beginning of receiving the alarm, the system is like a "smart brain", planning the fastest path to the fire scene; After arriving at the fire site, the system acts as the "commander", quickly surveys the 3D graphics of the scene, pushes the operational information directly to the command center, and instantly interacts with front-line firefighters.

However, technological innovation alone cannot completely solve the problems in reality.

You Shengzhan said that the intelligent fire protection in the Internet of Things era is not only an information transmission, but also to achieve overall controllability. "The intelligent system can realize the immediate alarm, and also consider how to better extinguish the fire." He said, for example, the fire extinguishing system should have the ability to think and calculate. For example, once a fire occurs, the system should be able to identify and analyze the fire trend, when to spray the sprinkler, and how much to spray, all of which should be carefully controlled, "From previous experience, the water damage caused by fire fighting is likely to be greater than that caused by fire burning, and 'brain' is required to accurately assess various risks."

He also noticed a real problem. New technologies have driven the rapid development of intelligent fire protection industry. At present, there is no unified administrative department leading the industry development, and no unified standard has been formed. The innovation of new technologies and new equipment in various cities and different enterprises "are all individual operations, and no joint force has been formed."

The more important practical problem is that people's awareness of fire protection is far from keeping up with the speed of technological development. You Shengzhan said reluctantly, "I asked hundreds of fire experts who had installed independent smoke detectors in their homes, but fewer than 10 people raised their hands."

Experts from Tsinghua University also said that the research of intelligent fire protection system encountered the problem of "difficult grounding". He believed that the most intelligent intelligent fire protection system was never created behind closed doors in the laboratory. "It must be combined with fire protection practice, and data collection and continuous improvement in practice can achieve the best effect."

Technological progress has also brought greater challenges to managers. "For example, what should the regulatory authorities do if we find that the fire passage is blocked by sensors? Statistics show that the electric vehicle charging accident is an important cause of the fire in the community. How should the relevant management departments deal with it?" He believed that in the era of interconnection of all things, the more "smart" technology will also force the government to be more intelligent in management.