Modeling and Analysis of Wildfire Detection using Wireless Sensor Network with Poisson Deployment

In many forest fire incidences, late detection of the fire has lead to severe damages to the forest and human property requiring more resources to gain control over the fire. An early warning and immediate response system can be a promising solution to avoid such massive losses. This paper considers a network consisting of multiple wireless sensors randomly deployed throughout the forest for early prompt detection of fire. We present a framework to model fire propagation in a forest and analyze the performance of considered wireless sensor network in terms of fire detection probability. In particular, this paper models sensor deployment as a Poisson point process (PPP) and models the forest fire as a dynamic event which expands with time. We also present various insights to the system including required sensor density and impact of wind velocity on the detection performance. We show that larger wind velocity may not necessarily imply bad sensing performance or the requirement of a denser deployment.