Idaho fire agencies using AI to detect wildfires

Artificial intelligence - or AI - is used for more than just generating images online. Firefighters are using it this wildfire season to help detect when a fire sparks.

AI wildfire detection cameras can be put up where traditional lookout towers can't be built and use an AI technology that scans for smoke.

"The cameras are essentially beefed-up, really nice security cameras that have a forty-power zoom," Idaho Department of Lands Deputy Chief Scott Hayes said.

The Idaho Department of Lands currently has six wildfire detection cameras. The live cameras send images back to a company called Alert West, which uses AI to detect anomalies - such as smoke.

"As soon as that anomaly is detected, it sends it into a detection center where they will actually have personnel reviewing those anomalies to see if it truly is smoke," Hayes said.

The tech can drastically cut down response times, like when a fire sparked near Julietta last month. The AI cameras alerted the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association (C-PTPA), who quickly put out the flames.

"We were able to stop that fire at just less than two acres," C-PTPA Chief Fire Warden Kane Steinbruecker said. "Had that camera system not picked up that fire, it likely would have burned until seven or eight in the morning, until somebody had detected it on their way to work...At that point, that fire would have been 50 or 60 acres."

To read more or to find a link to the live cameras, visit our news partners at KREM2 News.