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Article

Towards Smart Wildfire Prevention: Development of a LoRa-Based IoT Node for Environmental Hazard Detection

1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications and Computers (DEETC), Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL), 1959-007 Lisbon, Portugal
2
Technologies and Engineering School (EET), Instituto Politécnico da Lusofonia (IPLuso), 1700-098 Lisbon, Portugal
3
UNINOVA-CTS, NOVA University of Lisbon, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Monte de Caparica, Portugal
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Designs 2025, 9(4), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/designs9040091 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 28 May 2025 / Revised: 24 July 2025 / Accepted: 4 August 2025 / Published: 5 August 2025

Abstract

The increase in the number of wildfires in recent years in different parts of the world has caused growing concern among the population, since the consequences of these fires go beyond the destruction of the ecosystem. With the growing relevance of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, developing solutions for the early detection of fires is of critical importance. This paper proposes a low-cost network based on Long-Range (LoRa) technology to autonomously assess the level of fire risk and the presence of a fire in rural areas. The system consists of several LoRa nodes with sensors to measure environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide, air quality, and wind speed. The data collected is sent to a central gateway, where it is stored, processed, and later sent to a website for graphical visualization of the results. In this paper, a survey of the requirements of the devices and sensors that compose the system was made. After this survey, a market study of the available sensors was carried out, ending with a comparison between the sensors to determine which ones met the objectives. Using the chosen sensors, a study was made of possible power solutions for this prototype, considering the expected conditions of use. The system was tested in a real environment, and the results demonstrate that it is possible to cover a circular area with a radius of 2 km using a single gateway. Our system is prepared to trigger fire hazard alarms when, for example, the signals for relative humidity, ambient temperature, and wind speed are below or equal to 30%, above or equal to 30 °C, and above or equal to 30 m/s, respectively (commonly known as the 30-30-30 rule).
Keywords: LoRa; environmental hazard detection; IoT; IoT node; smart wildfire prevention LoRa; environmental hazard detection; IoT; IoT node; smart wildfire prevention

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MDPI and ACS Style

Pires, L.M.; Fialho, V.; Pécurto, T.; Madeira, A. Towards Smart Wildfire Prevention: Development of a LoRa-Based IoT Node for Environmental Hazard Detection. Designs 2025, 9, 91. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs9040091

AMA Style

Pires LM, Fialho V, Pécurto T, Madeira A. Towards Smart Wildfire Prevention: Development of a LoRa-Based IoT Node for Environmental Hazard Detection. Designs. 2025; 9(4):91. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs9040091

Chicago/Turabian Style

Pires, Luis Miguel, Vitor Fialho, Tiago Pécurto, and André Madeira. 2025. "Towards Smart Wildfire Prevention: Development of a LoRa-Based IoT Node for Environmental Hazard Detection" Designs 9, no. 4: 91. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs9040091

APA Style

Pires, L. M., Fialho, V., Pécurto, T., & Madeira, A. (2025). Towards Smart Wildfire Prevention: Development of a LoRa-Based IoT Node for Environmental Hazard Detection. Designs, 9(4), 91. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs9040091

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