Shortly thereafter 6:25 am on November 8, 2018, a 911 distributor received the first fire report near the Poe Dam in North California. Nineteen minutes later the firefighters saw what is known as camp fire. Drought had dried the plants in the area, and the heavy winds in the direction of paradise, a city located 10 miles southeast. “This potential has a major incident,” said Matt McKenzi, the chief of the fire.
An hour later, the hot Exercise rains on the south side of Paradise and aroused point fires before the main front. During the 40 minutes of the first fires, the main front of the fire had reached the city. The campfire burns for another two weeks and destroys paradise and killed 85 people. This is one of the most expensive fires in US history, along with recent LA fires.
Speed and destruction of recent fires focused on early detection – the hope that the fire crews the fire crew shortly after the flamm. Control, to ruin it. Tree-equipped cameras, satellites, and sensors are all used as ways to identify pimples when starting, but firefighters warn that premature detection has its limitations-and in some cases no detection. Early cannot prevent the worst fires from burning. Control.
As for the camp fire, 911 calls still make up most of the first diagnoses, says Marcus Hernandez, deputy head of the forestry and fire protection department in the field of fire technology research and development. Cal Fire also uses alertcalifornia, a network of more than 1,144 high -quality cameras across the state that can see 60 miles a day and 120 miles per night. The camera network is located in UC San Diego and is controlled by firefighters in command and control centers across the state.
In mid -2012, Alertcalifornia added the ability to automatically detect smoke columns from its camera videos using AI. “Only the awareness of the position of strategic cameras was useful before the giant mutation related to AI’s anomalies,” says Hernandez. Cal Fire also uses a system called Fireguard that uses military satellites to detect heat from fire. “It only warns us to check our other tools to find out if there is a fire,” he said. “We want to send it automatically.”
Dryad Networks, a German -based startup, wants to improve premature detection by placing trees with remote sensors that can detect fire smoke. “This is a low -cost and solar -energy gas sensor, like an electronic nose. It is similar to what you have in your home, but it has artificial intelligence there and wireless communications,” he said.
According to Brinkschulte, each device costs about $ 104 and can protect the forest hectare. California alone has about 13 million hectares of forest, but Brinkschulte says its company wants to focus on much smaller and high -risk areas where the fire begins more. Dryad’s favorite areas include train lines, roads, walking routes and power lines that have been linked to more than 3600 California fires since 1992, including camp fires.
