How Better Tech Could Save Lives in a World of Bigger, Faster, More Devastating Fires

livemint.com:

startups offer technology that can make up for shortcomings of satellite-based systems, which have limitations due to the great altitudes where they operate. Cameras from Pano AI, mounted on cell towers, water tanks and other high points, can continuously scan in a circle 10 miles out, says CEO Sonia Kastner. Images from the cameras are uploaded through cellular networks or internet connection and checked by software that can identify smoke.

Once a human verifies that it’s a fire, an alert is dispatched, via email and text, to customers including fire agencies. Many other companies offer competing camera-based technologies. For the most at-risk areas with the highest value, there are now options for detecting fires almost as soon as they start.

One is Dryad Networks’ solar-powered sensors, which can detect hydrogen, carbon monoxide and other gases, and use built-in artificial intelligence to evaluate when their levels change in a way that indicates a fire has started nearby. To communicate with authorities, Dryad Networks’ sensors create a mesh network—like the ones now popular for spreading WiFi access across a home. But they use a different wireless protocol, called LoRa, which is good for low-power communication across long distances, and even as far as outer space.

Currently, the system is being tested in 50 different installations around the world, including one in a forest of redwoods by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. At least one company has proposed automatically dispatching drones to dump water on fires soon after they’re detected, and others are trying variations on this idea. But fighting fires remains a mostly low-tech affair.