Could AI help to fight wildfires?

I scheduled this post 4 days ago, before the great Los Angeles’ wildfires. In these days the thoughts of all of us go to people that are leaving their home. I used only the first half of the post, and I didn’t add link to the last news. The question in the title, in my opinion, is just more urgent that ever. In Europe, in Africa, South America, frequency of wildfires is growing, caused also by higher temperatures, drought and a general mistreatment of the territory.

For years, California has suffered from massive wildfires, with homes, farms, fields, and vineyards completely destroyed. However, technology might offer a solution — AI against wildfires seems like a promising approach.

Every summer, California experiences severe droughts. It doesn’t rain for months, and the grass becomes increasingly dry. All it takes is a single spark to ignite a fire. In July, over 7,600 hectares burned in Santa Barbara. In September, a wildfire between Los Angeles and San Bernardino destroyed nearly 22,000 hectares. Farms and wineries were forced to evacuate, and not all wineries managed to save their bottles. Tracking and detecting wildfires in forests is not an easy task.

This is why Google has invested $13 billion to develop a monitoring system using satellite images from FireSat, a constellation of over 50 satellites. According to Google…