Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Wildfire Prevention: AI Startups Support Prescribed Burns, Early Alerts

08/05/2025

Artificial intelligence is helping identify and treat diseases faster with better results for humankind. Natural disasters like wildfires are next.

Fires in the Los Angeles area have claimed more than 16,000 homes and other structures so far this year. Damages in January were estimated as high as $164 billion, making it potentially the worst natural disaster financially in U.S. history, according to Bloomberg.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service have reportedly been redirecting resources in recent months toward beneficial fires to reduce overgrowth.

AI enables fire departments to keep more eyes on controlled burns, making them safer and more accepted in communities, say industry experts.

This is just like cancer treatment, said Sonia Kastner, CEO and founder of Pano AI, based in San Francisco. You can do early screening, catch it when it's in phase one, and hit it with really aggressive treatment so it doesn't progress - what we've seen this fire season is proof that our customers across the country use our solution in this way.

San Ramon, California-based Green Grid, which specializes in AI for utility companies, in September alerted its customer at a Big Bear resort that a fire started in the San Bernardino National Forest was near, said Chinmoy Saha, the company's CEO. By acting early, the resort customer was able to prepare for the needed suppression measures for the fire before it reached and became uncontrollable, he said. Due to the favorable weather conditions, the fire did not reach the customer territory.

In the recent Los Angeles area fires, Saha said he had been in discussion with a customer seeking to bring AI to cameras located at the site of the now-devasted Eaton fire that has claimed 17 lives and more than 9,000 buildings.

If we had our system there, this fire could have been mitigated, said Saha. Early detection is the key, so the fire is contained and it doesn't become a catastrophic wildfire.

Aiding First Responders With Accelerated Computing Pano's service provides human-in-the-loop AI-driven fire detection and alerts that have enabled fire departments to act faster than from 911 calls, accelerating containment efforts, said Kastner.

The company's Pano Station uses two ultra-high-definition cameras mounted on top of mountains like a cell tower, rotating 360 degrees every minute to capture views 10 miles in all directions. Those images are transmitted to the cloud every minute, where AI models running on GPUs do inference for smoke detection.

Pano AI's Pano Station in Rancho Palos Verdes Pano has a daytime smoke detection model and a nighttime near infrared model looking for smoke, as well as a nighttime geostationary satellite model. It has a human in the loop for verifying the detections, and it can be confirmed using digital zoom and time-lapse imagery.

It trains on NVIDIA GPUs locally and runs inference on NVIDIA GPUs in the cloud.

Harnessing AI for Controlled Burns California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is carrying out prescribed fires, or controlled burns, to reduce dry vegetation that creates fuel for wildfires.

Controlled burns are necessary, and we didn't do a good job in California for the past 30 or 40 years, said Saha. Green Grid has deployed its trailer mounted AI camera sensors for monitoring fires and control burns before they go out of control.

Pano can be used by fire departments to monitor controlled burn zones with its AI-driven cameras to make sure that plumes of smoke don't appear outside of the permitted zone, maintaining safety.

The company has its cameras stationed at Rancho Palos Verdes, south of the recent Los Angeles area fires.

The area around the palisades fire was a very overgrown forest, and with a lot of dead fuels, so our hope is that there is going to be more focus on prescribed fires, said Kastner.

Embracing AI at Fire Departments for Faster Mitigation CAL FIRE is partnered with Alert California and UC San Diego for a network of cameras owned by investor-owned utilities, CAL FIRE, U.S. Forest Service and other U.S. Department of the Interior agencies.

Through that network, they've implemented an AI program that looks for new fire starts. It pans every two minutes and continuously updates, and Alert California has the most up-to-date information from this network.

If AI can enable fire departments to get to the scene of a fire when it's just a few acres, it's a lot easier to control than if it's 50 or more acres, said David Acuna, battalion chief at CAL FIRE, Clovis, California. This is particularly important in remote areas where it might take hours before a human sees and reports a fire, he added.

They use AI to determine if this looks like a new start, said Acuna. Now the key here is the program will then send an email to the relevant emergency command center, saying Hey, I think we spotted a new start, what do you think?' And it has to be verified by a human.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/wildfire-ai-startups/...
See more stories from nvidia

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

11/08/2026

Dolby Acquires VVC Patents From Florida Atlantic University

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

Alyson Stewart Joins Zixi as Senior Director, Sales

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

FCC Issues Alert Over Scammers Impersonating Its Commissioners

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

Comcast, Disney Ink Deal to End NFL Network Blackout

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

farmerswife and Cirkus are Exhibiting at IBC 2026

farmerswife and Cirkus will return to IBC 2026 to showcase new tools designed to help broadcast, media and post-production teams manage workflows with greater s...

11/08/2026

LiveU Powers Cross-Venue Coverage of Glasgow Commonwealth...

LiveUs LU900Q intelligent production unit played a central role in the host broadcast operation for the Games in Glasgow (July 23 to August 2, 2026). The host b...

11/08/2026

Jigsaw24 Appoints James Morse as Client Director to Drive...

Jigsaw24 has appointed James Morse as Client Director, Media Sales, as it deepens its focus on sports, live events and integrated production. His appointment co...

11/08/2026

Net Insight enables one of Europes largest broadcast grad...

Net Insight today announced that DMC Production Norway has selected its Open Live Media solution to centralize the production of Blinkfestivalen 2026. Combining...

11/08/2026

Vivaro Supports Record World Cup Audiences with the Appea...

Modular HEVC and JPEG XS workflows enabled resilient, ultra-low-latency delivery for leading linear and digital media platforms across all 104 matches Appear A...

11/08/2026

Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Fabiola Mndez

Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Fabiola M ndez The first cuatrista to graduate from Berklee talks about the community that shaped her career ahead of her Homecom...

11/08/2026

FOR-A To Highlight MixBoard, Viztrik AiDi Enhancement At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

AMWA and EBU to Host Demos at IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

11/08/2026

Dalet Solution Suites Enable Media Teams to Move Like a S...

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced Dalet Solution Suites, a new portfolio of cloud-native solutions ...

11/08/2026

Mediagenix Helps Broadcasters Prepare for Brazil DTV Futu...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase how media companies can prep...

11/08/2026

Transforming your audience into advocates with Kelsey Gamble

Transforming your audience into advocates with Kelsey Gamble 10 August 2026 Building community, harnessing fandom for marketing and activating the four stages ...

11/08/2026

Why Scaling AI Compute Performance Requires a New Power Architecture

Every new generation of accelerated computing demands more from the infrastructure underneath it - more compute performance, higher rack density and more effici...

11/08/2026

Documentary reflecting on the 2015 Marriage Equality Referendum to air on RT

A Day in May airs Wednesday 12 August at 9.35pm RT One and RT Player A Day in May revisits the people and stories behind Ireland's historic marriage equa...

11/08/2026

NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and NeMo Switchyard Deliver Faster, Smarter, More Efficient Agentic AI

As AI shifts from chatbots to autonomous agents, open models are serving market ...

11/08/2026

NVIDIA and Local AI Community Fuel Open Source Models and Intelligent Agents

The open source ecosystem is making it easier for AI enthusiasts and developers to build, customize and run increasingly capable agents locally. Throughout Au...

10/08/2026

Apple to Bring Friday Night Baseball' Live to Apple Immersive on Vision Pro Beginning Aug. 28

Weekly immersive broadcasts will feature 8K 3D video, a 180-degree field of view...

10/08/2026

Raiju from fedDSP

Saturation plug-in free until 20 August 2026 fedDSP have announced the launch of Raiju, a new guitar pedal-style saturation plug-in that's capable of de...

10/08/2026

I/O Music release Talkback

New mix-comparison & feedback tool Independent Swedish record label I/O Music have recently released a handy new tool that provides artists, engineers, prod...

10/08/2026

Sound Radix launch Radical1 Solo

Additive soft synth gains free counterpart Sound Radix have just released a free monophonic additive software synth that's based on the same engine as t...

10/08/2026

Chroma integrates MXO oscilloscopes into ATS 8000 platform, rounding out its high-end power testing ecosystem

Chroma integrates MXO oscilloscopes into ATS 8000 platform, rounding out its hig...

10/08/2026

Former NAB Tech Exec Tom Keller Has Died

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

10/08/2026

Matthews Bows Monitor Stand III

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

10/08/2026

AES Elects David v.R. Bowles as President-Elect for 2027

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

10/08/2026

NUGEN Audio Helps SFCM Students Achieve Professional Mixe...

Students in the Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) gain rare, real world experience in professio...

10/08/2026

FOR-A demonstrates new and practical solutions to real ch...

FOR-A is using its presence at IBC2026 (stand 2.B53, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to show how its products deliver the answers to the real challenges faced...

10/08/2026

Frontier EU brings broadcast-grade network resilience to...

Frontier EU, official Peplink distributor for Europe, will exhibit at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam from 11 to 14 September, presenting live demonstrations of how Pepli...

10/08/2026

Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage Premiere Pro

Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage Premiere Pro Michael Cioni August 10, 2026 0 Comments This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup...

10/08/2026

Stunning Pixelated ASCII Effect for Apple Motion

Stunning Pixelated ASCII Effect for Apple Motion Simon Ubsdell August 10, 2026 0 Comments Apple Motion is perfect for building this popular ASCII unic...

10/08/2026

New York Jets, CBS New York Extend Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

10/08/2026

Welcome to the Show: Sky Creative unites football fans with start of season campaign

Monday 10 August 2026 Welcome to the Show : Sky Creative unites football fans w...

10/08/2026

Red Seat Ventures' Speakeasy Brings Video to Apple Podcasts, Beginning with Surrounded

Red Seat Ventures' Speakeasy Brings Video to Apple Podcasts, Beginning with ...

10/08/2026

30% More Pumping Hours With Autonomous Frac Operations

A major unconventional operator increased monthly pumping hours by more than 30% by automating critical frac completion processes and eliminating common sources...

10/08/2026

Apple, MLB announce September \u201CFriday Night Baseball\u201D schedule - UPDATE - Posted on 10 August 2026

Today, Apple and Major League Baseball (MLB) unveiled the September schedule for...

09/08/2026

reFX introduce Rippler

Combines physical modelling with subtractive synthesis reFX, the company behind the popular Nexus and Vanguard2 soft synths have announced the launch of the...

09/08/2026

Dreamtonics tease upcoming release

Human nuance is not a switch Dreamtonics have built up a solid reputation off the back of their Synthesizer V Studio software, a powerful vocal-synthesis t...

09/08/2026

COW Jobs: Documentary Editor - Remote

COW Jobs: Documentary Editor - Remote Brie Clayton August 9, 2026 0 Comments Documentary Editor July 31, 2026COW Jobs: Lead Generation Representativ...

08/08/2026

IK Multimedia launch Tonex 2.0 beta

Enhanced ToneNET integration & 220 new Premium V2 Tone Models IK Multimedia have just launched a public beta of Tonex 2.0, a release which is said to repres...

08/08/2026

Roland celebrate 808 Day

Honouring the drum machine that redefined modern music Roland have announced their plans for this year's 808 Day, a day that was founded to celebrate th...

08/08/2026

Call for Entries Now Open for the 20th Annual South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTAs20)

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...

08/08/2026

Star Wars Hyperspeed Tutorial: The No-Echo Method in After Effects

Star Wars Hyperspeed Tutorial: The No-Echo Method in After Effects Graham Quince August 8, 2026 0 Comments The Echo Effect to create long streaks is n...

08/08/2026

Chyron Releases AXIS 4.0 With Expanded News Workflows and Richer Map Storytelling

Chyron Releases AXIS 4.0 With Expanded News Workflows and Richer Map Storytellin...

08/08/2026

Nielsen to Acquire DoubleVerify for $2.15 Billion

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...