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Fires don’t just happen indoors in buildings.

Forests, sports stadiums, parking lots, camping parks or festival grounds would be just some of the places outdoors where fires can also happen.

And unsurprisingly, outdoor fires occur no less frequent as fires than affect buildings.

The issue with fires that happen outdoors is that their detection can be a lot more difficult than fires indoors. In some cases, outdoor fire detection had been entirely impossible, at least up until just the recent years.

Why do most fire alarms only work indoors?

The most commonly used devices for fire detection in buildings are smoke detectors. Then again, smoke detectors happen to be not very sophisticated in the way how they work. In fact, the principle behind how they work is possible. Most smoke detectors use a light sensor to detect smoke in the air. If smoke triggers the light sensor, the smoke detector is sounding an alarm.

Now, just from the way how smoke detectors work it is clear that they can only reliably work inside. In addition to that, they will also have to be installed relatively close to the potential location of fire. All this works are great inside homes or businesses. But what about fire detection outdoors?

In recent years, new technology has emerged that makes outdoor fire detection possible. These devices, including digital fire cameras and fire alarms outdoors work entirely differently as compared to smoke detectors. Fire cameras are like normal video cameras but have the ability to detect fires from a live video feed. If the camera sees a fire, they can notify emergency responders.

There are several big advantages with fire cameras: they do not need to be in the vicinity of a fire, which means that they can monitor outdoor spaces and structures from a large distance. They can detect fires in real time, sometimes only within seconds as they occur. Moreover, as fire cameras are much more advanced than smoke detectors, they are not simply sounding an alarm but can automatically notify responders and can even provide them with the exact GPS coordinates of a fire that had been spotted. In other words, modern fire detection cameras are much more than a simple fire alarm outside.

For more information on outdoor fire protection in United Kingdom check out https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/fire-safety-outdoors-barbecues-camping-countryside