How California is utilizing artificial intelligence to put out volcanoes before they spread.

Written By: Aniqa Batool
Last Updated On: September 25, 2023

In the midst of a July night, a fire broke out deep in the California wilderness of the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County. There were no fire officials in the vicinity, but AI was keeping an eye on things and contacted the authorities.

“The dispatch centre there was not aware of the fire,” said Scott Slumpff, battalion chief of Cal incident’s intelligence programme, who was testing new technologies at the time and received the original notice.

Cal Fire is using the technology to detect fires early in collaboration with the University of California, San Diego’s Alert California program and its network of more than 1,000 cameras across the state.

Without the AI detection, “that fire would have been a significant fire the next morning,” SeLegue in California added.

The cameras, which are normally situated in the mountains for a better vantage point, are constantly examining their surroundings in 2-minute rotations; AI detects any changes and highlights them in a red rectangle box on the screen.

“Once the camera system detects an anomaly, which is a different version of the last image, it red flags it,” said The cameras themselves are not new; Cal Fire has been using them to monitor flames for years. They are also open to the public and accessible: anybody can observe the network of view sheds to witness real-time weather conditions or catch sight of a fascinating species, such as a bald eagle, using the tower as a perch.

Cal Fire continues to watch video streams after identifying smoke to gain “situational awareness” of a fire – where it’s headed and whether it’s “encroaching on critical infrastructure,” according to SeLegue. It can also help law enforcement identify suspected arsonists.

Dean Veik, a former fireman and fire department liaison with Alert California. “It’s mostly looking for smoke.”

Because the test programme was so effective, California Cal Fire introduced the technology to all 21 of its dispatch centres across the state in early September.

“Our goal as an agency is to keep 95% of our fires at 10 acres or less, so this tool increases our ability to ensure that we’re keeping those fires small in the incipient phase,” SeLegue said in California, adding that the cameras can see 70 miles out during the day and 110 miles out at night. “We’ve had multiple successes of fires that went undetected at night that we were able to suppress before a 911 call even came into the command centres.”

Previously, dispatchers would have to watch those video feeds indefinitely, hunting for “a needle in a haystack,” according to Slumpff. “Eye fatigue” was always an issue because officials were continuously reviewing hundreds of feeds at once.

They now spend time focusing on the anomalies that the technology has found with the help of AI.

There are other lookout towers located around the state, some of which are manned by firefighters and others by volunteers. Volunteer Bill Angel of the Forest Fire Lookout Association is in his second season keeping an eye out for wildfires at the Boucher Hill lookout tower in San Diego County. His tower is only a few yards away from where the cameras on a communications tower are located.

The AI technology has “enhanced looking for fires, but it still requires humans,” he added as he kept watch over the broad valley below, raising his binoculars to his eyes frequently. “If lightning strikes the tower, they will go blind, but we will be there.”

The firefighters agree, believing that this new technology is making a difference and will not jeopardise human jobs.

“Nothing can ever take the place of boots on the ground,” Slumpff remarked. “In my opinion, we can absolutely save lives and property.”

“The greatest success is the fires you don’t hear about in the news,” SeLegue remarked.