Portland State Magazine Fall 2019

13 resources more effectively, especially during the critical first moments that a fire starts exponentially,” Brooks says. “The opportunity to contain a fire diminishes as time goes on. So if we can address something right away, that might be the difference between going in and hosing something down versus digging fire lines.” The device is 3D printed using a wood compound. Brooks says to be most effective, four devices are needed per acre. “We can figure out very quickly if an event is isolated, like a campfire that’s otherwise contained, versus a fire that's out in the wild,” he says. If multiple sensors go off, the system can triangulate and find the spark point. In more remote areas where cell and internet reception are problematic, that’s when the mesh network feature really shines. “Because we utilize small, low-power devices deployed in an array, if one of our devices detects an event, but doesn't have a reliable internet connection, it actually bounces the information off of our other devices until it reaches one that sends it out,” Brooks says. Most importantly, however, the device can integrate with any existing system a customer uses. “The forest service, for example, is heavily invested in these geographical information systems that give them a lot of information about the lay of the land and things like soil quality,” Brooks says. “We really designed this from the ground up to be very interoperable with existing systems.” Although Lite Devices hasn’t yet reached the final prototype stage, Brooks says the Oregon Department of Forestry has been interested to see what the final iteration of their product will look like. “That's a conversation that we're continuing,” he says.  Katy Swordfisk is a staff member in the PSU Office of University Communications. Seth Rohrbach, the fourth member of Lite Devices, holds their fire-detecting prototype.