SACRAMENTO — Cal Fire is getting national recognition for a piece of technology that is helping in the firefight. Time magazine named the agency’s fire detection artificial intelligence program one of the best inventions of 2023.

“I know a lot of people within our department and our programs at UC San Diego and Alert California have put a lot of hard work and time and hours into making sure this program is successful,” said Andrew Emerick of Cal Fire.

Time selected the advanced tool as one of 200 extraordinary inventions that changes lives.

The program – created for early fire detection and rapid response before a fire grows – is already proving to be beneficial across California. It’s really all thanks to the over 1,000 strategically placed cameras that can detect smoke columns.

“These cameras take photos, panoramic photos, every one to two photos,” Emerick said. “The system shoots to recognize differences between the photos.”

If a finding is determined to be smoke, that’s when the notification is sent to the command center so someone can take a closer look. That’s exactly what happened in a populated area of Grass Valley on September 11.

“The AI did catch that fire well before 9/11,” Emerick said.

In many cases, this program can detect smoke up to an hour earlier, which can be a big help in a firefight. For Emerick, the goal is to continue saving lives.

“Hopefully [it will help] prevent some of that destruction we’ve seen over the last three to four years,” he said.