When a wildfire breaks out, every second counts. A quick response can make the difference between a manageable fire and a catastrophic one.
CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Louis Ermigarat says that in the last 15 years, technological advances have made a huge difference in responding to wildfires quickly and efficiently.
"It's important for us to get there within, you know, 20 or 30 minutes, nothing more than that, because we're able to keep the fire ten acres or less 95% of the time," Ermigarat said.
He says the use of the Alert California camera system has been a game-changer.
"The camera will send an alert to our emergency command center, and the folks will swing the camera over there and zoom in and see the size of it. With that very quick response, not only going, but gathering intel of how the fire started, how fast it's spreading, we're able to escalate our response," Ermigarat said.
Now, a new company is aiming to take wildland fire detection technology even further. EmberPoint, founded by PG&E, Lockheed Martin, Salesforce, and Wells Fargo, is working to advance the tools available to fire teams.
"We want to make sure that our firefighters stay safe and that they have the right tools and the right coordinated technology to be able to, again, prevent, detect, and respond to fires quickly and safely," said EmberPoint spokesperson Linsey Paulo.
Emberpoint says it will give first responders and utilities access to "artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and integrated command-and-control technologies" to help detect fires earlier and enhance coordination between agencies.
Before the company can fully deploy its technology, it will need to navigate a regulatory process.
"In order to utilize the wealth of information that we've developed on wildfire prevention and mitigation over the last 10 years, we're going to have to go through a regulatory process with the California Public Utilities Commission," Paulo said.
The technologies are reportedly being built out now and Emberpoint plans to be able to demonstrate them later this year.
