Cal Fire is the first fire agency to use artificial intelligence to look for signs of wildfires and directly alert dispatch centers.
The Hawaiian Islands do see wildfire from time to time, but the catastrophic Maui fires were spawned by a striking mix of factors, including climate change.The rapid response was part of a new AI pilot project operated by Cal Fire in partnership with UC San Diego’s, which maintains 1,039 high-definition cameras in strategic locations throughout the state.
The AI constantly monitors the camera feeds in search of anomalies such as smoke, and alerts Cal Fire when it detects something. A red box highlights the anomaly on a screen, allowing officials to quickly verify and respond. “The success of this project is the fires you never hear about,” said Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of fire intelligence with Cal Fire.The program makes Cal Fire the first and only firefighting agency in the world to have such a system in place, SeLegue said. Though other agencies are testing similar tools, none feed directly to fire departments for an immediate response.
“This opportunity to have them teach the AI — you can’t get better expertise,” said Driscoll, who is also a professor of geology and geophysics at UCSD.
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