AI-boosted smoke-sniffing wildfire sensors approved for Santa Clara County

With California still reeling after chosen of its worst wildfires on record ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year Santa Clara County leadership this week approved artificial-intelligence-equipped smoke-sniffing sensors to bolster the region s early detection capabilities just as fire season gets underway In approving the sensors Santa Clara County follows Oakland which invoked the city s deadly firestorm in deploying of the devices in a pilot project Palo Alto which has installed a dozen Woodside with San Jose Water which has deployed mostly in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Stanford University which has installed of them in grassland and wooded areas on its property west of the campus We all know that state change is driving more frequent and severe wildfires throughout California board of supervisors president Otto Lee explained adding that if the devices enable a quicker response to even a small number of fires then it is absolutely worth the stake Four out of five of California s most-destructive wildfires and nine of the largest have occurred since according to Cal Fire Bay Area fires feature prominently on the lists of devastating blazes in latest years including the Tunnel Fire in the Oakland Hills the SCU Lightning Complex fires in Santa Clara Alameda Contra Costa Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties the CZU Lightning Complex fires in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties the LNU Lightning Complex fires in Napa Solano Sonoma Yolo Lake and Colusa counties the Tubbs Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties and the Nuns Fire in Sonoma County In a summary on the sensor project Santa Clara County staff highlighted the SCU and CZU fires which each destroyed certain buildings Lee in proposed installing fire-detection sensors in the county and county staff worked with other local executives including several that have already installed sensors to evaluate the costs and feasibility of deploying them in wildland-urban interface areas of the county Areas in the east and south parts of the county will see the first installations the county announced in a news release Final cost has yet to be determined but a county description pegged the price of purchasing and deploying of the sensors and paying for their operation for one to two years at to Seth Schalet CEO of the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council which buys and resells the sensors and works with local personnel to deploy them believes the catastrophic Los Angeles fires early this year accelerated leaders decision-making Los Angeles hasn t receded yet in what it s done to people s fear of wildfire Schalet announced Everybody now has wildfire on their mind Each sensor costs about to with pricing dependent on whether a wind meter is included and also on the level of tariffs on Chinese-made components a little less than per sensor under current import taxes Schalet commented The devices which can sniff out smoke from up to four miles will be installed in parks on open-space district land and apparently on several private properties Schalet reported They ll go up on fences and utility poles where practical and elsewhere on special posts Schalet announced In other parts of the country the sensors have alerted fire departments to previously undetected wildfires and the devices have also withstood flames although it is yet to be seen whether they would survive an intense firestorm Schalet announced The devices will provide another real-time method of fire detection beyond the arrangement of ALERTCalifornia cameras dozens of which are scattered around the Bay Area The sensors should be in place by year s end Schalet announced though he hopes to see installation completed before October Made in the U S by Maryland company N the solar-powered devices detect gases and particulates that smoke produces Artificial intelligence machine learning program analyzes the detections to determine the likelihood that a wildfire is present When a manageable fire is identified a device transmits a warning to local fire personnel using whatever cell operation has the strongest signal If the chemical signatures of fire are strong enough to cross a threshold the message to officers is an alert denoting a higher priority for response If cell institution is unavailable as can occur when fires damage infrastructure a backup Starlink satellite link is used Schalet mentioned Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga whose district in the west of the county includes plenty of forested residential areas with narrow winding roads reported every minute counts in responding to wildfire ignitions Identifying fires as soon as feasible can mean the difference between getting out or being trapped in various of these communities Abe-Koga explained Related Articles Crews halt fast-moving wildfire near Livermore Tracy Trump plans to merge wildland firefighting efforts into one agency but ex-officials warn of chaos Jennifer Garner s daughter blasts the wealthy after L A fires Map Navigating Fire in Southern California East Bay firefighters respond to vegetation fire Cody Hill associate director of resilience and emergency response for Stanford noted that in December a major wildfire threatened the Pepperdine University campus in southern California Anybody I think in higher coaching that has wildlands around the campus was paying attention to that Hill mentioned He added that typically during windy low-humidity fire weather in the Stanford area wind blows toward the west reducing the chances of a fire spreading from the hills down into the campus This project was about identifying innovative machinery in the wildfire-resilience space Hill stated Stanford wants to be used as a living laboratory Stanford s sensors have shown their sensitivity by detecting smoke from road flares set out near a traffic accident Hill mentioned Having these sensors that are monitoring it s reassuring knowing that tool s out there Hill commented