Wildfires pose a serious threat to the environment of the world. The global wildfire season length has increased by 19% and severe wildfires have besieged nations around the world. Every year, forests are burned by wildfires, causing vast amounts of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. There is a need for a system which prevents, detects, and suppresses wildfires. The AI based Wildfire Prevention, Detection and Suppression System (WPDSS) is a novel, fully automated, end to end, AI based solution to effectively predict hotspots and detect wildfires, deploy drones to spray fire retardant, preventing and suppressing wildfires. WPDSS consists of four steps. 1. Preprocessing: WPDSS loads real time satellite data from NASA and meteorological data from NOAA of vegetation, temperature, precipitation, wind, soil moisture, and land cover for prevention. For detection, it loads the real time data of Land Cover, Humidity, Temperature, Vegetation, Burned Area Index, Ozone, and CO2. It uses the process of masking to eliminate not hotspots and not wildfires such as water bodies, and rainfall. 2. Learning: The AI model consists of a random forest classifier, which is trained using a labeled dataset of hotspots and wildfires and not hotspots and not wildfires. 3. Identification of hotspots and wildfires: WPDSS runs the real time data through the model to automatically identify hotspots and wildfires. 4. Drone deployment: The drone flies to the identified hotspot or wildfire location. WPDSS attained a 98.6% accuracy in identifying hotspots and a 98.7% accuracy in detecting wildfires. WPDSS will reduce the impacts of climate change, protect ecosystems and biodiversity, avert huge economic losses, and save human lives. The power of WPDSS developed can be applied to any location globally to prevent and suppress wildfires, reducing climate change.

California wildfires are becoming more devastating and destructive as we face fire season year-round. And the reason is that we've had droughts," explained James Gore, the chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. "Those droughts have exacerbated things." "There's no'fire season' anymore," said CAL FIRE firefighter Camille Edward. "Sometimes it does take a toll.

Editor's Note: This is the first in a four-part series examining the growing role of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the power sector. Tomorrow, we look at how regional grid operators are using AI to optimize operations. The future of the electric grid is undoubtedly cleaner and more efficient and distributed, with hefty doses of technology and machine learning helping to operate it all. But if you're expecting a system dramatically transformed, experts say you'll be left waiting. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already helping utilities run their networks more efficiently, extending the life of equipment and helping to dispatch energy into markets more efficiently.