New AI system helps to identify wildfires as soon as they ignite

A San Francisco startup has developed a way of identifiying wildfires in remote locations within seconds of them starting up.

If tests are succesful, the service could help to prevent small fires developing into out of control infernos, and minimising any consequent damage.   PanoAI was launched last summer, and uses Articficial Intelligence to power its system. A revolving carmera scans the surrounding landscape every 60 seconds, and the images are analysed for wisps of smoke by the software. When it detects any sign of a blaze, the system immediatey alerts an employee and if it appears to be genuine fire, Pano contacts firefighters with details of its exact location.  

“We want to maximise the information available to first responders in the early moments of a fire,” Pano CEO Sonia Kastner told the San Francisco Chronicle. The idea is to nip these in the bud before they turn into unstoppable infernos.” The business was set up by Kastner after a 12 year career in manufacturing and product development, including Nest, the Google-owned venture that employs video cameras to enable people to monitor their homes.

With wildfires an increasing threat in California, Kastner looked into what firefighters needed to enable them to better fight the blazes, and “heard a chorus of calls for more technology solutions,” she said.   Early detection and rapid response are the key factors in keeping wildfires under control. Traditionally forest rangers kept watch from fire towers, and radioed authorities when they detected any smoke. But by using this new technololgy which can monitor remote areas 24/7, vital minutes can be shaved off the time it takes for fire fighters to respond to a call.

“Even if you get an extra two minutes, and you can triangulate where the first is, that’s huge,” confirmed retired fire chief Jim Comisky. While one drawback of AI is the potential for fase positives, Kastner claims that the Pano system operatres on 90% or higher rate of accuracy. “If we can utilize some of this new technology, it could be game-changing," said Comisky.    

South Lake County has asked Pano to test four camera installations to help with early fire detection. However, using webcams to monitor fires is nothing new. A monitoring system called Alert Wildfire was set up in the Lake Tahoe area and has now expanded to include 975 cameras. However, unlike the AI system, it requires humans to monitor the cameras in the early stages of detection.