AI Could Spot Wildfires Faster Than Humans

During his eight years as community alert and warning manager in Sonoma County, California, Sam Wallis has repeatedly watched wildfires roar through the cities and small towns he protects. Often with little warning, fires have razed homes and charred the area's picturesque hillsides, valleys and vineyards just north of San Francisco. Wallis had to evacuate his own home last year. And in 2017 his property was strewn with wind-blown debris from the deadly, 37,000-acre Tubbs Fire, one of the most destructive in California's history. "The Tubbs Fire was the seminal event, an absolutely massive and fast-moving fire that we had no way of tracking," Wallis says.