Department of Homeland Security adds sniffing device to AI tools helping fight wildfires in Colorado
Headlining an event this week at the Boulder County Regional Fire Training Center , the sensor can detect fire-born particulates, volatile organic compounds, chemicals and gases and then send the data to a cloud-based system that updates every 18 seconds and issues geographically targeted notifications to disaster management officials and first responders. Although the sweet spot for detection is a half-mile to a mile away, developers said a sensor once detected a fire 5 miles away.
"If I was barbecuing and burned a steak, or I was baking cookies and forgot to turn the oven off, or even worse, if something caught fire, you would smell that difference, right?" said Debra Deininger, chief revenue officer at N5 Sensors, which created the sniffer. "What we've done is kind of emulated a dog's nose with our sensors...to tell if a fire has started, if it's burning or if it's smoldering, often before you can see the smoke."
Gilpin County was the first place in the U.S. to use the sensor, initially on its own and later partnering with United Power.
The sensors are intended to protect people, homes and evacuation routes, Deininger said, and to get the most coverage in Gilpin County, which has 6,000 people spread across 150 square miles, the former emergency management director asked United Power to place them on utility poles. More than 100 sensor installations later, they have detected three fires, including one that had re-ignited after it was extinguished.
Three of 20 sensors also have been installed in Jefferson County, where they have yet to detect a fire. The additional 17 should arrive in the near future.
Dimitri Kusnezov, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's science and technology directorate, said first responders need all the help they can get from new technology, like the N5SHIELD. Another AI-driven fire sensor recently introduced to Colorado can detect fresh fires via satellite images and instantly alert NOAA and National Weather Service officials, enabling them to make more efficient and informed decisions.
"The whole goal is to buy time to respond to communities, to evacuate, to stage equipment," Kusnezov said. "How do you buy moments, hours, days? It'll probably be a mix and match of technology and not a 'use this.' What we'll try and qualify is a technology that has certain characteristics. And it'll be done with first responders."
Also introducing: a "holy grail" for lung healthAs the meeting unfolded Wednesday, hundreds of firefighters were battling the Pearl fire near Red Feather Lakes in Larimer County amid gusty winds, which whipped around clouds of smoke.
That smoke contained gases and particulates that a U.S. Forest Service study recently determined increases firefighters' risk of dying from lung cancer by 8% for those working five years and 43% for those working 25 years and dying from cardiovascular disease by 16% and 30% for firefighters working those same timespans.
Since wildland firefighting began in the 1880s the only lung protection responders have had are bandanas or, more recently, N95 masks, said Kimberli Jones-Holt, program manager for the science and technology directorate.
But better protection is on the way: a battery-operated air-purifying respirator a firefighter can carry in a backpack or hip pack that filters the lethal chemicals, particulates and gases and runs clean air through a tube and mask.
The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control is among the first agencies in the country to test the device, which Jones-Holt said "will be like the Holy Grail for firefighters" when it becomes available through FEMA's authorized equipment list sometime in 2026.
Homeland Security also introduced an app that provides real-time location information of responder groups for better coordination; radar technology that assesses damage and risks from wildfires, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes to help disaster management teams understand hazard extents, impacts on critical infrastructure and safe locations for relief efforts; and AI-directed drones, still in development, that will scout locations and find missing persons by processing information rescuers feed them.
Kusnezov said the department has invested in these and other devices to improve emergency-related technologies and communication. "But there's no point in developing something that isn't attached to someone who needs it," he added, citing the change-making power of hearing about a first responder during the Marshall fire "standing on the silent road saying 'I don't have any information.'"
