The FIRESENSE system will be based on an integrated approach that uses innovative systems for early warning. Its main purpose will be to remotely monitor areas of archaeological interest from the risk of fire, while simultaneously providing weather data that can be used for efficient protection and preservation of cultural heritage assets.It will take advantage of recent advances in multisensor surveillance technologies. The key idea is to place a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) capable of monitoring the  temperature, as well as optical and infrared cameras, on the deployment site. The signals collected from these sensors will be transmitted to a monitoring center, which will employ intelligent computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms as well as data fusion techniques to automatically analyze sensor information. The system will be capable of generating automatic warning signals for local authorities whenever a dangerous situation arises.

In a typical application scenario, multimodal wireless sensors are deployed at the site, which will be monitored. The sensors will acquire periodic measurements from the environment (e.g. ambient temperature, humidity) and provide their readings through the network to the monitoring centre. Optical cameras will monitor not only the site itself, but also the surrounding forested land. The collected measurements from multimodal sensors will be fused in the the monitoring centre for evidence or indications of fire in the monitored environment. In addition to periodic sensor measurements, events requiring attention can be triggered by activity, smoke or heat detection sensors. In the case of fire detection, the system will create an alert message for the fire fighting management. Moreover, the system will receive weather data from official weather information services e.g. TSMS as well as from local meteorological station installed at the demostration site and will create alerts in case of extreme weather conditions.

Detecting the starting position of a wildfire is only the first step in fire fighting. After detecting a wildfire, the main focus should be the estimation of the propagation direction and speed, in order to help the forest fire management. If the vegetation model and other important parameters like wind speed, slope, and aspect of the ground surface are available, the propagation of the fire can be estimated. Finally, a Geographic Information System (GIS) will visualize the predicted fire propagation in 3D, providing services for decision and operational support in forest fire suppression. Potential users of the system are: the Ministry of Culture, Forest Fire Suppression Services, local authorities, civil protection authorities, as well as the Command and Control Centers in charge of operations.

In addition, archaeological sites are also at risk from other natural disasters such as floods and storms, which result in the loss of irreplaceable archaeological and cultural assets. For instance, alterations in temperature and rainfall affect the way ancient structure decay, while floods cause damage to cultural landscapes and archaeological sites. Through the deployment of a monitoring infrastructure, it will become possible to gather useful information and take preventive measures for the preservation of heritage sites.