Falco Kuester, a researcher at ALERTCalifornia, a program run by the University of California San Diego, looks at imagery of firefighters at a fire from one of the program's cameras on Sept. 18, 2023, in San Diego. California's main firefighting agency, Cal Fire, in July started trying out an artificial intelligence system that looks for smoke from more than 1,000 mountaintop camera feeds.
California’s main firefighting agency this summer started testing an AI system that looks for smoke from more than 1,000 mountaintop camera feeds and is now expanding it statewide. It’s already helped. A battalion chief got a smoke alert in the middle of the night, confirmed it on his cellphone and called a command center in San Diego to scramble first responders to the remote area.
The technology gets around one of the main problems in the traditional way of detecting wildfires — relying on 911 calls from passers-by that need confirmation from staffers before crews and water-dropping planes can be deployed. Utility companies sometimes play a role in sparking wildfires, when their power lines are knocked down by wind or struck by falling trees. Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged that its power lines started a devastating blaze in Maui this summer after apparently being downed by high winds.
Ferres’ team at Microsoft has been developing AI models to predict where fires are likely to start. They have fed the model with maps of areas that burned previously, along with climate and geospatial data. Another company is looking to the heavens for a solution. German startup OroraTech analyzes satellite images with artificial intelligence.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: BusinessMirror - 🏆 19. / 59 Read more »