AI Wildfire Detection Bill Gets Initial Approval In Colorado

A year after the most destructive wildfire in the state’s history scorched nearly 1,100 homes, Colorado lawmakers are considering joining other Western states by adopting artificial intelligence in the hopes of detecting blazes before they burn out of control.

A Colorado Senate committee on Thursday unanimously voted to move forward a bill to create a $2 million pilot program that would station cameras on mountaintops, and use artificial intelligence to monitor the footage and help detect early signs of a wildfire. The bill will move to the state Senate Appropriations Committee next.

‘It can detect just a wisp of smoke and it’s that type of situation in remote areas that could save forests and homes and properties and lives,’ Democratic state Sen. Joann Ginal, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in the hearing.

The deployment of AI is part of an ongoing effort by firefighters to use new technology to become smarter about how they prepare and better position their resources.

Fire lookout towers once staffed by humans have largely been replaced by cameras in remote areas, many of them in high-definition and armed with artificial intelligence to discern a smoke plume from morning fog.