AI cameras detected fire in rural SLO County before 911 — and called it in. ‘A huge advantage’
Cal Fire put out a wildfire in rural San Luis Obispo County on Tuesday afternoon — but no 911 call was ever made.
Instead, AI cameras detected smoke and notified first responders in the early stages of the fire before it became an inferno.
"No one ever called this in," Cal Fire public information officer Ryan Grebe told The Tribune. "A computer somewhere just said, 'You have a fire.' That's pretty impressive to me, and it speaks to where we're headed with technology."
The fire burned around noon on Tuesday on La Panza Ranch south of Highway 58 at the intersection of San Juan Creek Road and Hay Canyon Road, about 40 minutes away from the closest Cal Fire station. Updated mapping put the fire at 16 acres, Grebe said.
At the heat of the day all the way out there, the fire could've done severe damage if detected even a little later, Grebe said.
"If that fire had been allowed to burn for even another half-an-hour to an hour without someone seeing it, that fire could have absolutely grown to a few hundred acres in size," Grebe said. "It could have destroyed structures or other things in the area and caused a lot of property damage."
Luckily, it was detected by one of the over 1,000 cameras set up on California hilltops and panoramic vantage points that provide a 360-degree view to Cal Fire command centers.
The ALERTCalfornia camera system, based at UC San Diego, monitors wildfires and disasters across the state in real-time.
AI technology was integrated into the system in September 2023, allowing cameras to detect smoke, dust or other debris and notify the Cal Fire emergency command center, Grebe said. From there, a trained officer looks at the camera feed to determine if the alert is in fact a fire and dispatch the necessary resources.
The system was already a replacement for old fire lookouts across the state — which previously required people to man the them around the clock — but with the wireless feeds now equipped with AI capabilities, fires can be detected without a person monitoring the cameras, Grebe said.
"We're really looking forward to using this where there's a situation where a fire is building at night and everyone's asleep, or maybe it's out a little farther out in the rural areas, but it's already proven itself on what it can do," Grebe said.
Since the inception of the program, SLO County has had several fires that have been detected by AI ahead of 911 calls, Grebe said.
"Typically, we rely on people with cell phones to call this stuff in and communicate what's going on via 911," Grebe said. "Now we have this whole other method of being notified of a fire and it doesn't involve the public at all."
Grebe said that with this early detection, Cal Fire can catch fires early on and dispatch response crews much quicker, especially in less-monitored rural areas.
"If you do have a confirmed fire, and we're looking at the camera, and no one's at scene yet, but they're on their way, and this fire is really rapidly growing, we can see that from the camera and then we can augment resources and add additional resources or aircraft onto that fire," Grebe said. "This gives us a huge advantage where we can get ahead of the curve and have our resources respond out to those areas."
The AI camera system was recognized by TIME as one of the top innovations of 2023 .
"I think it's going to be really exciting to see how this technology helps us in the future," Grebe said.
