California camera network flags half of fires before 911 calls
A SpaceX rocket carried the first three FireSat satellites into orbit in July, inaugurating a planned constellation of 50 satellites built solely to spot wildfires while they remain small enough to extinguish. The system is designed to fill a gap in current detection: existing weather and Earth-observing satellites can detect large fires, but they often lack the resolution or revisit the same location too infrequently to spot small fires shortly after they ignite.
FireSat is designed to detect fires as small as a beach bonfire and, once the full constellation is deployed, to scan every point on Earth about every 20 minutes. The satellites use infrared sensors and artificial intelligence to search for heat that could signal a new wildfire, comparing fresh images against earlier ones and accounting for factors such as weather conditions and nearby sources of heat before sending alerts to emergency responders. The goal is to identify genuine wildfires while reducing false alarms.
The satellite system is designed to work alongside a growing network of cameras on the ground that use artificial intelligence to search for smoke and heat. Together, the systems could give firefighters their earliest warning yet that a fire has started.
High in the mountains west of Denver, two technicians climbed a 150ft cell tower to inspect a pair of wildfire-detection cameras built by Pano AI, a San Francisco startup. “There are two Pano AI cameras,” said Arvind Satyam, the company’s co-founder. “They’re sitting on top of that cell tower.”
Pano AI has installed more than 1,400 cameras across 17 states. The cameras continuously scan the landscape from towers and mountain tops, and artificial intelligence reviews every image, searching for smoke during the day and heat after dark. “The AI algorithms are being run continuously on that imagery to say ‘smoke, not smoke,’” Satyam said. “At night-time, we’re looking at heat signatures, so heat versus cold. And then we’re able to zoom in and validate that it is a potential fire start.”
When the system spots a possible fire, a human analyst reviews the images before an alert is sent to fire agencies, a process that often takes only a few minutes. Firefighters say that head start can make all the difference. “It’s a great tool to validate what’s going on,” said Brendan Finnegan, assistant chief with West Metro fire rescue near Denver. “Having those eyes that can alert us well in advance of potentially a 911 call make it a valuable tool for us.”
California has built one of the largest camera networks in the country through Alert California, a system of more than 1,200 cameras used by Cal Fire. “This is all of our cameras,” said Chief Phillip SeLegue, standing before a wall of live camera feeds in one of Cal Fire’s control centers. SeLegue said the system now detects about half of all wildfires before anyone calls 911.
One recent fire near Fresno was spotted about 20 minutes before the first emergency call reached dispatchers, and firefighters were able to respond quickly and keep the blaze from growing. “At Cal Fire, one of our missions is to suppress 95% of our fires at 10 acres or less,” SeLegue said. “This system helps us in accomplishing that goal.” He added: “We trust it enough that when we receive that detection, we’re already starting the process of sending resources to it.”
Ground cameras can only see the landscapes in front of them, while satellites can watch vast stretches of remote forests, mountains, and grasslands where there are no cameras and often no people to report a fire. The two systems are designed to work with each other, giving firefighters a faster and more complete picture of where fires are starting.
The fires in Spokane, Washington, this summer offer a reminder that when a wildfire is detected can be just as important as where it starts — a blaze found within minutes can often be contained before it spreads. Wildfires have become one of the most destructive natural disasters in the United States, with rising temperatures, prolonged drought and more frequent stretches of hot, dry and windy weather making fires easier to ignite and harder to contain. Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators that researches and reports on the changing climate, reports that some parts of the western United States now experience about two more months of fire weather each year than they did in the 1970s.
A fire that is detected quickly and extinguished while it is still small rarely attracts attention — exactly the outcome that SeLegue said firefighters are working toward. “The fires that this system has helped us dispatch resources to are the fires you don’t read about in the papers,” he said. “The ones you don’t see.”