ALERTWest is a new company founded in 2023 with the goal of providing firefighters with the benefit of wildfire detection and real-time data to help allocate appropriate resources through the use of cameras.
It's a model based on a successful public-private partnership in California. Scott Shifand of ALERTWest pioneered this effort after experiencing the Camp Fire near Chino. His team developed artificial intelligence to detect smoke.
“With the AI model we developed, the camera rotates 360 degrees about every two minutes,” Shifand said. “If the system thinks there is a possibility of a fire, it flags the image.”
From there, the images are sent to an operations center where a human verifies that the smoke is a fire, and from there an alert is sent to fire managers using a robocall, text message or email so that they all have the same information at the same time.
“We're bringing together different groups and using humans along with software and artificial intelligence,” Shifand said. “We're combining these to help put out devastating wildfires.”
This year, the Idaho Bureau of Land Management is installing five cameras across the central part of the state, sending data to ALERTWest to provide situational awareness and an easy-to-use live feed online.
Scott Hayes of the Idaho Bureau of Land Management gave the example of smoke detected by cameras near the Elk River on Wednesday morning, which had been reported by loggers minutes earlier, showing how the new technology could be useful when sparks fly when no one else is nearby.
“If the loggers hadn't been there, the fire would have stayed where it was until the patrol plane arrived at 1 p.m.,” Hayes said. “No doubt the fire would have gotten a lot bigger.”
With wildfires stretching resources across the state, this new technology also provides fire managers with critical real-time data to help them prepare an appropriate response.
“Without that information, you can overestimate or underestimate the response,” Hayes says, “so you can apply the right amount of force in the right place.”
ALERTWest has also partnered with the Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Power and the Idaho Department of Transportation. It's a relatively new partnership, but the organizations are working to connect all of their camera systems.
“We're of the mindset of not reinventing the wheel,” Shifand said, “If there are different camera networks out there, we want to partner with all of them to really increase situational awareness.”
The Idaho Bureau of Land Management plans to install three new cameras this year and 15 more next year if funding is available.
“It's fun and nice to see new technology that makes it easy for people to see,” Hayes said. “When you actually say, here's a website, sign up for alerts, people get excited.”
