Wikipedia overviews the California wildfires of October 2007 while Centernetworks describes a dozen different Social Media Networks Tracking The California Fires.

UCSD’s High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) is a NSF funded network research program. Since 2003, HPWREN has been involved with networking Incident Command Posts using WiFi to aid firefighting efforts for large wildland fires.

The southern loop of the HPWREN backbone was replaced just last week with an FCC-licensed path from coastal area to Mt. Laguna. Previously HPWREN used a license-exempt 5.8GHz link which was subject to unplanned outages caused by radio issues and interference. A wireless camera and weather station was also installed. HPWREN sensor data can be used for setting off real-time alarms for firefighters.

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Sam Churchill and Don Park run the DailyWireless.org website which summarizes the news from Community Lan and other industry related sectors with detailed updates from around the world. It is full of sausy talk, viscious rumors and tantilizing tidbits.

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