HPWREN & FFLA-SDRC
High Preformance Research and Education Network
The FFLA-SDRC would like to recognize the somewhat unusual collaboration between a research project at the University of California San Diego and first responder agencies over the past approximately 20 years. Starting in 2000, the UCSD High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) informally collaborated with wireless communications staff of firefighting and County agencies, specifically via the Emergency Command Center of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, as well as the San Diego County Sheriff Department’s Regional Communications System. As the collaboration progressed over time, in 2010 the County of San Diego contributed funding for additional cameras and other sensors to augment what HPWREN already had in place. Around that time HPWREN had a significant number of fire stations connected, which then led to San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) supporting a substantial buildout of connectivity, cameras, and weather sensors for the San Diego County area, to encompass as many local, state, and federal fire stations as possible. The continuation of this buildout is by now directly supported via San Diego County, SDG&E, and fire agencies.
SDRC has used HPWREN facilities since reopening both the Boucher Hill and High Point lookouts. The first several years saw very spotty to no cell coverage and HPWREN provided their network for VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) which provided reliable telephone support in the tower. Currently with full HPWREN internet facilities in both towers lookout are able to access many pieces of critical information, including high resolution video from the extensive HPWREN network, as well as any other internet website. Thank You for your support.
Fork Fire view from the Mount Wilson Observatory at 60 fps
This video, complements of Hans-Werner Braun of HPWREN, shows the Fork Fire and its ignition location, as visible from the 150 foot Solar Tower at the Mt. Wilson Observatory, looking East, from between 15:00 on 19 July 2024 until 06:00 next morning. The operation of the telescope domes is clearly visible at night in the foreground, with the fire itself visible at more that 16 miles distance in the background. The visible plume, as an indication for a fire ignition, became noticeable around 15:35. While the video is in color, for the time span between about 21:33 and 03:06 I picked the images from the monochrome camera, due to its higher light and near-infrared sensitivity. The video consists of 2700 photos, taken 20 seconds apart, with a playback speed of 60 frames per second. Each of the photos is 3072×2048 pixels in size, and the video is encoded at the full resolution. Unfortunately the video has no time stamps right now, but we have the time stamps in the metadata for each frame.
Cal Fire Training Exercise
This is a 2007 video of CAL FIRE airplanes at their Ramona Air Attack Base. It shows takeoffs and landings of the AA330, as well as the two S2 tankers, most likely during a training exercise.