Automated cameras aided by artificial intelligence are helping Summit County firefighters spot and extinguish hot spots long before they burn out of control.
Chief Drew Hoehn, at Red White and Blue Fire in Breckenridge, says these cameras have been scanning the county for several years now. And they live up to the hype.
“They’re a game changer for us,” Hoehn tells Krystal 93. “They allow us to hop on fires pretty quickly. I think the public is pretty surprised when they learn how many starts we actually have in Summit County.”
Summit’s two local fire departments respond to dozens of suspected and small fires every fire season, beginning as early as May and lasting until the first significant snowfall in October. Statewide, Colorado fire officials estimated upwards of 6,000 fires erupt every summer, while only 20 to 30 burn large enough to earn names and widespread attention.
“The cameras, over the last couple years, have allowed us early recognition,” Hoehn says. “The response is significantly faster than it has ever been in the past. We can get on top of these starts before they get bigger, often before the public even knows they are burning.”
How they work
These AI-powered cameras came to Summit out of necessity.
Xcel Energy has installed five of them countywide, inspired by fires like the Marshall Fire of 2021, when downed powerlines were partly to blame for an unprecedented December wildfire in the Front Range foothills.
When a fire camera spots something it considers a suspicious – a plume of smoke – it sends an alert to Hoehn’s smartwatch. He follows the alert to a mobile app, which feeds him video from the suspected burn site and triangulates exactly where it is burning.
Like most everything AI, humans need to confirm what the robot suspects. Within minutes the chief can scramble firefighters to get eyes on the site and decide if it needs a response.
In the past week a robo-camera near French Gulch north of downtown Breck spotted a suspicious plume of smoke. Firefighters arrived to find a group of campers tending to a campfire, responsibly, and let them be.
This past summer in the same area, a robo-camera spotted a similar plume of smoke that turned out to be an unattended fire. Fire crews contained it before it could burn more than a small patch of forest. Surprisingly, the camera was the first to report this plume in a neighborhood with plenty of homes and watchful eyes.
“Our battalion chiefs and duty officers have the same technology,” Hoehn says of the AI notification system. “Other counties across the state have funded these (cameras) themselves. I know the Aspen area was the first to get the cameras and they had some private funding for some of them.”
In Summit, Xcel gives camera access to fire departments, 911 dispatch and the sheriff’s office. Hoehn calls it the perfect combination of new-school technology and old-school firefighting, saying, “we are really grateful” to have them.
Preview images via San Miguel Power, and Red White & Blue Fire.