Researchers and forest managers are turning to artificial intelligence in the hope it can help them predict the risk of catastrophic wildfires as climate change continues to rewrite the rule book.
It's been the subject of more than 150 recent academic studies, said Mike Flannigan, director of the Western Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta.
Fires are fought before they start, by getting equipment and crews to the right place to fight them early. Once well and truly ablaze, they're tough to stop. "The question is which data really does have any correlation. That's where the AI comes in play. It automatically figures those correlations out."
"It gives you a seasonal prediction for points on the map in terms of how likely it is to get a small fire or a large fire," he said. "It's a pretty basic output." Artificial intelligence will have stiff competition from Canada's current methods, which Flannigan said work well and are copied globally.
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