Firefighters use ALERTWildfire cameras to monitor, put brakes on potential catastrophic wildfires

RENO — As fire hazard has built through the summer, ALERTWildfire, a network of mountaintop cameras that helps fire managers spot and monitor fires over large swaths of land, has been on a frenzied pace to reach its goal of adding 300 cameras to the network in the western U.S. by the end of the year. In the past three years the network has been involved with nearly 1,000 fires.

So far this year, ALERTWildfire crews installed more than 200 new cameras in hazardous fire regions, especially near the forest/urban interface, bringing the total to 230. What started as a pilot program, AlertTahoe, to protect the Tahoe Basin from catastrophic wildfire, now spans Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with the majority of cameras in Nevada and California at this point.

This brings the total ALERTWildfire cameras to 265 across five states. The project should hit 200 new California cameras in September with Nevada in second place with 28 cameras.

The 21st Century fire-spotting technology gives firefighters a birds-eye view of the surrounding landscape, able to spot fires day and night, to provide valuable intel that can reduce response times and help fire managers deploy resources to where they are needed most during a wildfire.

“We can see second by second what’s happening 24/7/365,” Graham Kent, Nevada Seismological Lab director and creator of the mountaintop fire camera system, said. “The old way of doing business, putting people on top of a mountain to look for fires, might still work to a good degree, but this new technological approach is tough to beat.”

The system features high-definition pan-tilt-zoom cameras that rotate 360 degrees, giving real-time information 24/7 using near-infrared technology, all coupled with private microwave networks and internet. Cameras can see from 40 to 60 miles during the day and 80 to 100 miles or more at night.

“With our extensive partnerships, we’ve figured out how to install dozens of cameras in a single month,” Kent said. “Our goal of 300 new fire cameras by years end in California looks like it could become a reality. Besides California, our efforts to scale up in other states are underway.”

Fire officials are able to control the cameras remotely from their computers or phones and have even been tracking controlled burns around the Tahoe basin and elsewhere. Kent said the cameras are a critical help in spotting wildfires as early as possible so fire crews can respond and assign resources before the fire is out of control.

“The camera network is another tool in the toolbox for firefighting managers, not only do they use it for early detection and confirmation of fire reports, they use it to help mobilize and distribute resources for the firefighting effort,” Kent said.

Network Expansion
The fast-growing network would not be possible without the support of elected officials endorsing the many partnerships and collaborations with public land use agencies, utility companies, communications companies and of course fire agencies – 46 partnerships in all to date. The expansion began with two key partnerships: University of California, San Diego and University of Oregon.

From U.C. San Diego, Professor of Geosciences Neal Driscoll has spearheaded the massive expansion into key fire hazard areas of southern California. From the University of Oregon, Earth Sciences Professor Doug Toomey has spearheaded expansion into Oregon and been a key ally with Driscoll and Kent for the expansion into the areas of northern California hit hard by forest and wildland fires in the past few years.

The consortium of three universities, seismology experts, has created 11 distinct geographic camera systems spanning five states: Nevada, Tahoe Basin, North Coast, Shasta-Modoc, North Bay, Inland Empire, SouthEastBay, Sierra-Foothills, Central Coast, LA-Orange, San Diego.

“The beauty of this system is that not only can fire service personnel look for indications of fire, but the public interface can be used by anyone, at any time, to look for fires in a crowdsourcing fashion,” Kent said. “The more eyes the better. While fire agencies can move the cameras with active pan-tilt-zoom functionality, the public can observe the real-time views as well as the time-lapse functions with a 15-minute, 30-minute and 6-hour time-lapse utility built into the webpage viewer.”

The public can also access the live camera views on the ALERTWildfire website www.ALERTWildfire.org, which also links to their YouTube channel that features time lapses of fire progress.

Graham Kent TEDx talk – https://www.ted.com/tedx this talk was given at a University of Nevada, Reno TEDx event in 2019.

In the Photo: The Nevada BLM ALERTWildfire camera system was used successfully in July 2016 by firefighters to muster resources for the Hot Pot Fire north of Battle Mountain at the town of Midas, which burned 122,000 acres, exploding at a pace of 10,000 acres an hour.

— Mike Wolterbeek is a Communications Officer for the University of Nevada, Reno. He can be reached at mwolterbeek@unr.edu