California Firefighters Use AI to Battle Wildfires

Computers are 'learning' how to spot smoke from wildfires in California, giving firefighters a helping hand. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP
Computers are 'learning' how to spot smoke from wildfires in California, giving firefighters a helping hand. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP
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California Firefighters Use AI to Battle Wildfires

Computers are 'learning' how to spot smoke from wildfires in California, giving firefighters a helping hand. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP
Computers are 'learning' how to spot smoke from wildfires in California, giving firefighters a helping hand. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP

When a wildfire erupted in the middle of a recent California night, it could have been a disaster.

But thanks to a new monitoring system that uses artificial intelligence to scan for danger, firefighters were able to quell the blaze long before it got out of hand.

"It was less than a quarter acre," Captain Kris Yeary of Cal Fire told AFP.

"Had the AI not alerted us to it, it could have gotten much bigger."

Yeary, who is responsible for organizing firefighting over an area that includes Mount Laguna, around 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of San Diego, sprang into action around 3am on August 5 after a call from colleagues at a command center.

Computers watching live feeds from the Cleveland National Forest spotted what their algorithm had been taught to understand was a column of smoke.

Human operators were able to verify the machines were correct and alerted Yeary, whose firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.

"It could have been a devastating fire," he said.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a rapidly developing field of computing that seeks to mimic human abilities to "think."

Unlike a traditional computer, which can only produce answers based on the concrete information it has, AI can infer answers, using experience it has gained from similar problems it has seen before -- similar to a human being.

Over the last few years, its application has spread to include areas as diverse as weather forecasting, stock-picking, art and journalism.

That has brought with it worries from people who fear it will do them out of their jobs -- the writers' and actors' strike currently paralyzing Hollywood is in part about the use of AI in films and television.

But firefighters battling California's wildfires say they will take all the help they can get.

"AI is just another tool for us," said Yeary. "It's never going to replace firefighters."

Promising results

California experiences thousands of fires every year, which torch hundreds of thousands -- sometimes millions -- of acres (hectares).

Over the last decade, blazes have claimed more than 200 lives, and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, wreaking billions of dollars of damage.

For several years firefighters have used a network of more than 1,000 cameras to monitor possible fire hotspots.

Since the end of June, the ALERTCalifornia system has had AI computers "watching" these feeds, and flagging to human operators when they see wisps of smoke that could be a fire -- with promising results.

"Our success metric is the fires you never hear about," says Neal Driscoll, who heads the project for the University of California San Diego.

"We beat 911 calls about 40 percent of the time. And it's going to get better."

The addition of AI has meant each firefighter watching the dozens of feeds they are responsible for now has a helping hand.

When the software believes it detects smoke, it displays a small red rectangle on the screen, and offers a percentage indicating its degree of certainty.

It is then up to the operator to confirm the seriousness of the alert -- and weed out any confusion.

Currently, the system can erroneously flag dust raised by tractors, insects in front of the camera or even a bit of fog.

"When a cloud will go over... it can cast a shadow on the ground and sometimes (the computer) can actually think that that's possibly smoke," says Suzann Leininger, an intelligence specialist at Cal Fire.

The feedback that experts like Leininger give -- no, that's just a bit of weather -- is helping the AI to get better at what it does.

But even in its current state, it's a boon.

"It's getting us time to react in a faster manner," says Leininger.

And when you're talking about fire, time can be everything.

Climate change
As California grapples with the effects of human-caused climate change, fires are becoming bigger and more destructive.

The state has experienced 18 of its 20 largest wildfires on record in the last two decades.

With terrifying blazes ripping through Europe, Canada and Hawaii this year, the devastating impact of the changing climate is becoming ever-more apparent worldwide.

"I think that as we see these devastations in other areas, like in Greece, and Maui, that systems like this that provide early confirmation will be a step in the right direction," says Driscoll of UC San Diego.

Faced with the scale of the threat, the scientist has chosen to grant public access to the data on his platform, so that other companies or academics can work on it.

"We need to leverage all of our assets and work together, because extreme climate is bigger than any one of us."



Google Hires Windsurf Execs in $2.4 Billion Deal to Advance AI Coding Ambitions

FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
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Google Hires Windsurf Execs in $2.4 Billion Deal to Advance AI Coding Ambitions

FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Alphabet's Google has hired several key staff members from AI code generation startup Windsurf, the companies announced on Friday, in a surprise move following an attempt by its rival OpenAI to acquire the startup.

Google is paying $2.4 billion in license fees as part of the deal to use some of Windsurf's technology under non-exclusive terms, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Google will not take a stake or any controlling interest in Windsurf, the person added.

Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some members of the coding tool's research and development team will join Google's DeepMind AI division, Reuters reported.

The deal followed months of discussions Windsurf was having with OpenAI to sell itself in a deal that could value it at $3 billion, highlighting the interest in the code-generation space which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing AI applications, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in June.

OpenAI could not be immediately reached for a comment.

The former Windsurf team will focus on agentic coding initiatives at Google DeepMind, primarily working on the Gemini project.

"We're excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf's team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding," Google said in a statement.

The unusual deal structure marks a win for backers for Windsurf, which has raised $243 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks and General Catalyst, and was last valued at $1.25 billion one year ago, according to PitchBook.

Windsurf investors will receive liquidity through the license fee and retain their stakes in the company, sources told Reuters.

'ACQUIHIRE' DEALS

Google's surprise swoop mirrors its deal in August 2024 to hire key employees from chatbot startup Character.AI.

Big Tech peers, including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, have similarly taken to these so-called acquihire deals, which some have criticized as an attempt to evade regulatory scrutiny.

Microsoft struck a $650 million deal with Inflection AI in March 2024, to use the AI startup's models and hire its staff, while Amazon hired AI firm Adept's co-founders and some of its team last June.

Meta took a 49% stake in Scale AI in June in the biggest test yet of this increasing form of business partnerships.

Unlike acquisitions that would give the buyer a controlling stake, these deals do not require a review by US antitrust regulators. However, they could probe the deal if they believe it was structured to avoid those requirements or harm competition. Many of the deals have since become the subject of regulatory probes.

The development comes as tech giants, including Alphabet and Meta, aggressively chase high-profile acquisitions and offer multi-million-dollar pay packages to attract top talent in the race to lead the next wave of AI.

Windsurf's head of business, Jeff Wang, has been appointed its interim CEO, and Graham Moreno, vice president of global sales, will be president, effective immediately.

The majority of Windsurf's roughly 250 employees will remain with the company, which has announced plans to prioritize innovation for its enterprise clients.