Lots of Data and AI Helping Firefighters

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Lots of Data and AI Helping Firefighters

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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Points: 734459
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June 21, 2021 at 12:00 am

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Lots of Data and AI Helping Firefighters

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003865 More actions · Answer 1

I would actually be seriously concerned about this. There are a whole lot of things not being considered and I'm thinking it'll be pretty easy, because of missing data, for the software to say, "A fire here will be a cake walk to control" when in actuality, it'll be MUCH worse.

What data am I talking about? It's already been proven that the ground cover overgrowth has been a really big reason why some of the fires have been so horrible. Do you really thing that a satellite is going to be able to correctly assess that factor through the dense canopy of a long established forest? How about dryness of that overgrowth. Can you measure that through the canopy? What else are they missing.

My recommendation would be to NOT trust this until it's proven that it doesn't make mistakes, regardless of reason or use (manpower predictions or proactively checking for places that need some thinning and other care).

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125522 More actions · Answer 2

It's good to see AI and Big Data applied to something useful in terms of societal impact - rather than the usual marketing and political applications. Something else that would be useful to forest fire fighters - a fleet of AI enabled autonomous drones that fly over the forest with heat sensing cameras and smoke detectors, so they can detect a fire in it's early stages. Once a potential fire is detected, first responders could take control of the drone and zoom in to access the situation, and in the case of arson or negligence, the drones could conduct surveillance on suspects leaving the scene.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003865 More actions · Answer 3

Using drones in conjunction with satellites would also be a great way to check for the undergrowth problem, as well.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)