- New research may help wildfire prevention in the future.
- Engineers developed a platform that uses AI to scan hundreds of video feeds for signs of fire.
The Maui wildfires became the deadliest in modern US history this weekend as the death toll hit 93 people, county officials reported early Sunday morning.
As crews work to contain and extinguish the fires, new technology out of California may one day be able to assist them in stopping these disasters before they start.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have created a platform called ALERTCalifornia, which feeds video from 1,038 cameras across the region to an AI system that can detect smoke and other fire indicators in real time.
While this technology is still being tested and improved upon, engineers say the technology could one day help identify wildfires before they become disastrous anywhere in the world.
"Its 100% applicable throughout anywhere in the world, especially now that we're experiencing a lot larger and more frequent fire regimes and with climate change," Suzann Leininger, a research data specialist at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told the Times of San Diego.
The system is especially useful at night when few people are around to spot the smoke and call 911. The system, first activated in July, has already detected one fire — as a result, the system alerted fire crews who then extinguished it in under 45 minutes, Reuters reported.
The data gathered by ALERTCalifornia is also available to private companies and researchers, Neal Driscoll, the principal investigator of ALERTCalifornia, told the Times of San Diego.