Students who designed a device that warns communities prone to fire have won a UK James Dyson Award.

Dyson, which has its UK headquarters in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, runs the awards each year to encourage budding inventors to find solutions to problems, according to the BBC.

This year’s winner is the Pyri device, a biodegradable wax and charcoal detector that sends radio signals to vulnerable communities.

Dyson said the invention is a “great example” of an innovative idea that tackles a growing problem.

Pyri is the product of students Richard Alexandre, Karina Gunadi, Blake Goodwyn and Tanghao Yu.

Alexandre mentioned that he was inspired to create it after seeing the devastation caused by fires in his country.

“As a Brazilian, the device we created has a lot of personal meaning for me after seeing firsthand the devastation caused by the Pantanal fires,” he said.

“As this disaster seems to continue around the world, we hope that with Pyri we will be able to detect wildfires early enough to protect the earth from this kind of disaster in the future.”

How was the success of the device judged?

Entries for the national award are judged by an external panel and a Dyson engineer.

The 20 best projects are then reviewed by Sir James Dyson, who selects the winners, who win a £5,000 prize.

Rumyana Dancheva, Senior Design Engineer at Dyson, said: “The Pyri team has developed an exciting product with a compelling vision of functionality, technology, shape and sustainability.

“It has the potential to have a huge positive impact on both people and the environment through the early detection of fires.”