How artificial intelligence, satellites, and drone tech could help fight climate change-driven wildfires - Richard van Hooijdonk Blog

As climate change-driven wildfires continue to wreak havoc around the world, artificial intelligence, satellites, and drones are emerging as a potential solution to this problem. Despite repeated warnings from the scientific community about the gravity of the issue, our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise year after year, resulting in deadly heatwaves, devastating wildfires, severe droughts, and powerful hurricanes. While these extreme weather events once used to be few and far between, they've become more frequent and lethal in recent years, a direct consequence of climate change. According to Munich Re, one of the world's leading insurance companies, weather and climate events killed more than 4,000 people worldwide and caused around $42 billion in insured losses in 2019. Wildfires in particular have become increasingly destructive in recent years. An average of 67,000 wildfires per year were recorded over the last 10 years in the United States, burning an average of 7 million acres of land, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).