Investment of US$5.5 million and 60 forest fire cameras

November 7, 2023

From December 4th until March 31st, 2024, the 2023-2024 Forest Fire Protection Operation will be carried out, with continuous monitoring through 60 smart cameras and a total estimated cost of approximately US$5.5 million. This was announced to EL TELEGRAFO by Rafael Sosa, coordinator of the fire prevention plan for the Society of Forest Producers (SPF), who highlighted the quadrupling of the number of installed smart cameras as the main difference compared to last year’s plan. The number has increased from 15 along the country’s coast—in the previous season—to a total of 60, extending to other areas and significantly expanding the coverage area. «Three more will be added along the coast to cover the entire area of Paysandú, Río Negro, and northern Soriano,» he specified “They will also cover the departments of Rivera, Tacuarembó, and the southern part of Río Negro, all of Durazno, Cerro Largo, and the northern part of Treinta y Tres,” he added. “There will be 60 cameras in total,” which will be “monitored from the Monitoring and Dispatch Center in Durazno, and the southern zone, including the entire southeast and southwest, will continue to be monitored by aircraft, as before,” he explained.

Through these 60 cameras, it is estimated that coverage will reach around 60% of protected forests in the forest area, he commented.

Although now “some of the cameras are detecting and informing the forestry industries” so that they can take measures, the operation in everything that includes “the combat response, the helicopters with the heliborne brigades, (from) the three bases –located in Varela, Tacuarembó and Andresito– and there the complete deployment, begins on December 4 and in principle until March 31 of next year, unless things get very complicated it can be extended for another week,” he explained.

Looking ahead to the 2023-2024 season, he added, “We also made some improvements to the software we use to manage the entire emergency. The fire management system has new software—which received a global award for its features, winning the Special Achievement Award in Geographic Information Systems at the 2023 Esri User Conference—and some operational adjustments, but these are things we normally do every year, fine-tuning the things we believe need improvement.”

Regarding the investment involved, he explained that “the operating cost is around four to four and a half million dollars. Then this year, with the installation of the cameras, it took almost another million dollars to invest in fixed infrastructure.”
“In total, the companies will mobilize about five and a half million dollars to get the operation up and running,” he concluded.