Google Research’s AI Wildfire Detection Tool

Finally an AI application that might actually be useful and worth the carbon it’s using:

Satellite imagery that’s currently used for active firefighting is available at a low resolution or only updated a few times a day, making it difficult to detect fires smaller than a soccer field. To address this challenge, Google Research has been partnering with the U.S. Forest Service to expand our existing work on fire simulation and develop FireSat, a purpose-built satellite constellation. FireSat provides highly detailed insights, useful data for ecological intervention, and novel ground truth that will allow scientists and machine learning experts to study fire propagation and risk.

It’s always such a novel idea when a California-based tech company is actually working on making their state, which is heavily affected by wildfires, a better place to live. And possibly the planet, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, this is Google after all, it’s probably just a play to insert ads into National Forest land.