Wildfires across the world are extremely deadly. The destroy everything in their paths and spreads faster than authorities have the ability to stop them. Last year California saw its deadliest wildfire. 1,893,913 acres were burned in the fire and 86 lives were lost. Fires like this occurred all over the world, including Greece and Australia.
“These fires are linked to symptoms of climate change: droughts, increasing temperatures, shifting wind patterns and low humidity.” This means wildfires wont be ending soon. A San Francisco company, SilviaTerra, is using artificial intelligence to map forests which can help reduce the risk of fires. The company uses all types of information from remote sensing data to topographical data and using satellite data along with aerial photographs and laser scanning techniques to measure the spread of vegetation. Currently, the team is mapping every forest in the US. They will be able to identify the areas most at risk of fire once the maps are complete. By mapping out the different kinds of tress, researchers will be able to see which trees are where and know which are flammable which will tell them whether or not they’re at risk for fire. SilviaTerras technology will make forrest inventories much more accurate than they were before. This technology will allow for officials to be notified and put physical barriers around places with a high risk of wildfires or they can cut down trees. The AI used by SilviaTerra will be very helpful to places all over the world and will be able to save dozens of lives.
Beall, Abigail. “Future – How to Bring Wildfires under Control.” BBC News, BBC, 27 Feb. 2019, www.bbc.com/future/story/20190226-how-to-bring-wildfires-back-under-control.
I found your blog post very interested because I had never really thought about the advances in technology that are being made because when I think about wildfires I usually think about firefighters and firetrucks trying to keep them under control. Interestingly, after looking into the technology that keeps wildfires under control today, there hasn’t been much innovation for many years. This is because “[firefighters] can’t afford to rely on solutions that haven’t been thoroughly field-tested. And, of course, there are major budget constraints as money gets consumed by the day-to-day battles,” (Said). A portion of the budget does go towards research and new firefighting tactics but the majority does go to these day to day battles. As much as there is new innovation as you mentioned, firefighters from 1955 would recognize the technology we are currently using to fight fires but the wildfires today are much more aggressive than back then so that is a huge problem. I believe that the AI you mentioned will help firefighters incredibly but we definitely need to do more research what is making the wildfires increasingly worse as the years go by.
Said, Carolyn. “Wildfires Have Changed. The Technology to Fight Them Hasn.” Government Technology: State & Local Government News Articles, Emergency Management, http://www.govtech.com/em/preparedness/Wildfires-Have-Changed-The-Technology-to-Fight-Them-Hasnt—-Yet.html.