Most flame spotters scout for wildfires with their eyes. But researchers have shown they can now map distant flames with electronic ears, too.
Even a low-intensity grassland fire “hums” loudly enough to be monitored just by sound. That’s the finding of a new study in the July 16 Geophysical Research Letters.
Researchers deployed acoustic sensors near a prescribed burn in Idaho. That was a fire set intentionally to remove dried vegetation that might otherwise fuel a later wildfire.
Scientists Say: Infrasound
As the fire burned, those sensors picked up a low-frequency rumble.
By tracking this infrasound — frequencies too low for the human ear to hear — the sensors mapped the flames’ spread. These data show the technique can detect even relative...
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