Lightweight radiosondes for wildfires research
Read how firefighters and researchers have used Windsond to study Wildfires and their behaviors
How Windsond Promotes Firefighter Safety During Wildfires
A recent study demonstrates that deploying small instrumented weather balloons into wildfire plumes significantly improves situational awareness and firefighter safety.
Using the Sparv Windsond S1H2, researchers launched 156 sondes across Spain, Chile, Greece and the Netherlands to collect high‑resolution profiles of temperature, humidity and wind in both ambient and in‑plume conditions.
Comparing these profiles detects sudden, dangerous shifts in fire‑driven winds and plume dynamics, giving incident commanders timely, localized atmospheric intelligence. Sparv’s next‑generation Windsond S2 is now available, offering lighter, more robust hardware and improved data quality to better support research and operational wildfire decision‑making. Contact Sparv for tailored instrumentation and field support.
Mapping extreme wildfire behavior
Windsond was used to study extreme wildfire behavior in a field campaign led by Marc Castellnou; results were published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (Nov 2022, DOI: 10.1029/2022JD036920).
The study launched 13 Windsond radiosondes across seven 2021 Iberian wildfires and first validated Windsond against Vaisala RS41‑SG.
In‑plume profiles revealed atmospheric conditions that differed from prior theory, supporting a proposed four‑type classification of fire–atmosphere interactions and demonstrating the value of in‑fire soundings for understanding plume‑driven extremes. The work highlights Windsond’s mobility and its usefulness for safer, more informed wildfire research and operations
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