The human element is still key in detecting wildfires. But new tech is aiding the fight

Sensors can keep you from backing your car into a garbage can; remote operations allow surgeons to work from thousands of miles away; your fridge can tell you when you’re out of milk. But in the earliest moments of a fire fight, authorities still rely on a time-tested technology: humans.

Capt. Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department says the most common way his agency and others are alerted to fires is via the public.

But new technology — including drones, camera networks and sensors — have joined the fight by augmenting human capabilities.

“I think as a society, we need to continue to think outside the box as we see wildfires increase in severity and duration,” Scott said. “And we just witnessed the largest natural disaster to hit Los Angeles in January. We all need to come together collectively, as a group of human beings, to work smarter, not harder.”

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What happens when you report a fire?

The most common way authorities are alerted to a fire is a person calling 911 from a cellphone. That call bounces off a cellphone tower and gets sent to a dispatcher. For fires, they direct the call to the appropriate fire department.

“Often there'll be multiple 911 calls on a significant wildfire due to how visual a column of smoke can be in a large metropolitan area,” Scott said.

Once a report is made, technology can begin to assist firefighters.

Cameras can confirm the details of a 911 call. Depending on where the smoke and flames are, algorithms that take into account how severe a fire can get can help determine the appropriate resources and number of firefighters to be sent to the scene.

How cameras help firefighters

The Palisades Fire burns on Jan. 7 in an image taken from an Alert California video.

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UC San Diego

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If you saw time-lapse footage of the January L.A. fires on television or online, it was likely from UC San Diego’s Alert California system, which is part of a larger network of cameras operated by universities in Western states. This system of cameras that pan, tilt and zoom helps officials locate fires, distribute resources and track fires’ spread and containment.

How high-tech aircraft contribute

Airplanes are another tool to help firefighters understand the severity of a fire and predict its behavior — planes equipped with a system called the Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System. FIRIS can map the real-time perimeter “within five minutes of the aircraft arriving,” Scott said, as well as take high-definition live video and detect hot spots.

FIRIS, which began as a pilot program in 2019, is now available throughout California roughly 23 hours a day, according to Robert Scott, assistant chief at the California Office of Emergency Services and FIRIS operations manager.

“FIRIS operates at zero cost to the communities that request it,” he said.

FIRIS aircraft relay data to a system called WIFIRE. It’s a supercomputer that provides fire modeling and can predict fire behavior up to five hours in the future. It combines data from weather stations, topography, fuel models and the FIRIS aircraft’s data. Authorities can use the predictions and models to make decisions about allocating resources, communicating with the public and evacuations.

For smaller missions, firefighters don’t always need an expensive plane and a highly trained pilot. Sometimes, a drone will do.

The LAFD has “strived to become an early leader in the use of drones for firefighting applications,” Scott said. The Skirball Fire in 2017 was the first time the LAFD deployed a drone to provide “post-fire damage assessment and infrared capability to identify remaining hotspots in the brush,” he added.

The department’s fleet of drones helps save money on expensive helicopter flights, and they can also assist with hazardous materials incidents and urban and water search and rescue.

What could be next for fire tech?

Vasya Tremsin was a high school student when wildfires tore through Napa in 2017. He had a simple question: “Why does everyone have smoke alarms and fire detectors indoors, but there isn’t anything that does that outdoors?”

Now 25, Tremsin is the founder and chief executive of Torch Sensors, which makes a product he hopes can address that gap.

But it won’t be as simple as putting smoke detectors outside. Torch’s sensors have “six different cameras, including thermal, infrared, and visible cameras that perform spectral analysis. We have three different gas sensors, and then temperature and humidity. All of those variables are measured at the same time,” he said. That’s important because something as simple as wind could render a lone gas sensor useless.

Torch has a few early projects in the works, including 100 devices in North Carolina, 20 devices in parks in New Mexico, and plans to deploy 150 this month in L.A. County.

Torch is inviting L.A.-area residents to join a waitlist if they’re interested in receiving a sensor.

In a perfect world, Tremsin said, authorities wouldn’t have to place firefighters in areas where flames have been put out to watch for reignition because a solar-powered sensor would carry that load, freeing up firefighters to battle active blazes.

As technology makes its way into almost every aspect of modern life, generations of professional knowledge and experience are being converted to a computer’s ones and zeroes. But will technology ever be able to apply information in the same way a veteran firefighter would? Time and innovation will tell.