Author: Alfi Nursakina Rahmah

Kincade Fire in Northern California, as shot by the Sentinel-2 satellite on October 27. San Francisco (CNN Business) As wildfire season raged in California this fall, a startup a few states away used artificial intelligence to pinpoint the location of blazes there within minutes — in some cases far faster than these fires might otherwise be noticed by firefighters or civilians. Santa Fe-based Descartes Labs, which uses AI to analyze satellite imagery, launched its US wildfire detector in July. The company’s AI software pores over images coming in roughly every few minutes from two different US government weather satellites, in search of any changes — the presence of smoke, a shift in thermal infrared data showing hot spots — that could indicate a fire has ignited. Descartes is testing its detector by sending alerts to select forestry officials in its home state of New Mexico and told CNN Business its wildfire detector has spotted about 6,200 total thus far. The company says it can often detect these fires when they’re just about 10 acres in size. “Since wildfires are hot, they stand out pretty well,” said Clyde Wheeler, an applied scientist at Descartes who spearheaded the project. It’s a big change from how fires are often spotted in the US. Current methods include looking for fires via planes or lookout towers, or simply having civilians report them. Donald Griego, New...