Machine learning model uses social media for more accurate wildfire monitoring

Scientists have developed a new machine learning model that uses social media data to predict and monitor wildfires more accurately in real-time. Data scientists from Imperial's Data Science Institute used machine learning - a subfield of artificial intelligence where computers learn from data and statistics, in a wildfire prediction model. In this new model, they combined social media data and geophysical satellite data to predict wildfire characteristics with high accuracy. The study, published in the Journal of Computational Social Science, demonstrates how social media could be key to making more informed, socially driven decisions which could help disaster management teams to identify areas of immediate danger. The intensity of wildfires and wildfire season length is increasing due to climate change, causing greater threats to populations worldwide.