AI cameras are spotting wildfires across California — often before humans call 911

For generations fire lookout towers stood as landmarks across the American West Binoculars in hand dedicated fire spotters scanned the landscape for smoke and radioed firefighters before flames grew out of control But now as California enters what is historically the the bulk dangerous part of fire season the end of summer before the first major rains lone human sentries have largely given way to a new type of fire lookout on mountain tops high-tech cameras What began as a small research project at UC San Diego years ago has grown into a powerful configuration of cameras constructed on peaks and hilltops across the state with millions of dollars in state funding and oversight from Cal Fire Built on towers observatories and buildings the cameras are part of a system called ALERTCalifornia They turn degrees every minutes taking photos with each pass hours a day Upgraded with artificial intelligence program two years ago they can pan tilt zoom detect smoke and alert fire dispatchers automatically sometimes before humans call Each can see miles away on a clear day and with near-infrared apparatus gaze out miles on a clear night Lookouts get up in the morning and work until dusk But this is - commented Brian York deputy chief for fire intelligence at Cal Fire We measure success in all the times that we respond and put out the fires that you never hear about he declared Especially in rural areas at night when preponderance people are sleeping Since the number of cameras has more than doubled The AI lookouts are now on top of plenty of of California s most of prominent peaks including Mount Hamilton Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais in the Bay Area Martis Peak at Lake Tahoe Mammoth Mountain in the Sierra and the slopes of Mount Shasta The cameras have been used to monitor atmospheric river storms the recovery of California condors even a tsunami warning along California s coast in July after an magnitude earthquake off Russia They can be revealed on Southern California peaks like Mount Wilson near Los Angeles Cowles Mountain in San Diego and even on Catalina Island along with the top of the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz and the roof of the Oakland Coliseum Anyone can view the camera feeds live at alertcalifornia org They are here to help during emergencies commented Caitlin Scully UC San Diego spokeswoman But they are used all the time by so multiple different groups Because they are available for free people use them to watch big storms or even check the conditions up in the Sierra when they want to go for a hike The structure is based at UC San Diego s Jacobs School of Engineering the Qualcomm Institute and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography It is run and maintained by UC San Diego with Cal Fire large utilities like PG E Southern California Edison San Diego Gas Electric and other partners contributing locations and camera equipment From to Cal Fire contributed at least million to expanding the system New fire departments and other agencies sign up to be partners and their personnel are given access to pan and zoom in the cameras Last month East Bay Regional Park District which has acres of parkland across parks in Alameda and Contra Costa counties signed on The arrangement isn t without its shortcomings To address privacy concerns UC San Diego blurs homes parking lots and other nearby features that could track people in real time The AI system developed by a DigitalPath a Chico company also can t invariably tell smoke from dust storms clouds or other false positives Its solution had to be taught not to overview steam from the Geysers geothermal fields in Sonoma County And in big urban fires like in Los Angeles in January residents with cell phones account fires almost as soon as they begin The biggest advantage with them is that we can monitor fires now as they are ongoing noted Craig Clements director of the Fire Weather Lab at San Jose State University There are limitations with detection The cameras can see smoke and sometimes hot spots They can t see through mountains And if a fire starts at the bottom of a canyon you aren t going to see it AI and smoke detection are still in their infancy Remote video cameras operated by the ALERTCalifornia organization display live landscapes across California as CalFire communications operator Javier Garcia monitors from the CalFire Dispatch Center in Morgan Hill Calif on Thursday Sept The ALERTCalifornia system is a system with over remote cameras placed on mountains and hills throughout California which scan their surroundings for smoke and automatically notify fire dispatchers Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group Clements mentioned the equipment also may be overtaken in the years ahead by high-tech satellites But for now he reported it is very useful for fire commanders meteorologists and researchers to learn about fire behavior in real time as huge fires are exploding across the landscape I look at it all the time Clements disclosed You can t get flame heights spread rates and things like that But I look at the plume structure how thick the smoke plume is things you can t see on satellite That shows you the state of the fire and gives you a sense of the fire s intensity The cameras don t dispatch fire engines helicopters or airplanes on their own They send a message to dispatch centers across the state which is then verified by humans Last year there were wildfires in Cal Fire s jurisdiction Of those were picked up by the cameras mentioned Cal Fire s York And or were detected by the cameras before any person called to document them In one such development on July an AI camera posted an alert at am of a fire near Auburn in the foothills east of Sacramento Nobody had called Cal Fire s Grass Valley Urgency Command Center verified it and sent engines Fire crews identified a fire and put it out before it spread beyond a x foot area It was a perfect example of a fire that doesn t gain attention because it was detected early and extinguished while still small York noted Fire lookout towers with human fire spotters are going the way of the phone booth and fax machine Where there were once more than in the s s and s in current times there are only left in California according to Forest Fire Lookout Association Only about of the sites are regularly staffed now mostly with contributors Cell phones automated cameras more airplane flights and more people living in rural areas have reduced their effectiveness Jamey Erikson superintendent at Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton in the hills east of San Jose declared old paper directions are still posted in offices there telling people how to description the coordinates of fires But the three ALERTCalifornia cameras at the observatory have made that largely obsolete he declared I use the cameras religiously to look for smoke to check the weather he revealed They are essential