Researchers and forest managers are turning to artificial intelligence in the hope it can help them predict the risk of catastrophic wildfires as climate change continues to rewrite the rule book.
Itsa国际传媒檚 been the subject of more than 150 recent academic studies, said Mike Flannigan, director of the Western Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta.
sa国际传媒淚t is definitely front and centre in terms of the research agendas in terms of wildland fire and will continue to be for the next years,sa国际传媒� he said.
One insurance company says it has already developed an artificial intelligence program that can assess fire risk well in advance.
Fires are fought before they start, by getting equipment and crews to the right place to fight them early. Once well and truly ablaze, theysa国际传媒檙e tough to stop.
sa国际传媒淥nce the fire gets to be a crown fire and itsa国际传媒檚 two football fields or larger, itsa国际传媒檚 nearly impossible to put it out until the weather changes,sa国际传媒� Flannigan said. sa国际传媒淵ousa国际传媒檙e spitting on a campfire.sa国际传媒�
The occurrence and severity of wildfires are hard to foresee, said Balz Grollimund of insurance giant Swiss Re. Droughts or forest conditions can be easily considered, but ignition depends on near-random events such as lightning strikes or the presence of roads.
Risk factors such as vegetation type also vary from place to place.
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sa国际传媒淎ll these things are very tricky with wildfires,sa国际传媒� Grollimund said. sa国际传媒淲esa国际传媒檙e trying to anticipate where wildfires will occur.sa国际传媒�
Artificial intelligence is well-suited to find order in a chaotic mass of data, he said.
sa国际传媒淵ou start with your observations. What have you seen in the past decades in terms of where wildfires have occurred and how big they got? And you look for correlations with any factor that might have any impact.
sa国际传媒淭he question is which data really does have any correlation. Thatsa国际传媒檚 where the AI comes in play. It automatically figures those correlations out.sa国际传媒�
Grollimund said hesa国际传媒檚 helped develop an artificial intelligence program that can predict fire risk as far as six months out.
He tested the program by feeding data from November 2015 from across Canada. Working with scientists and computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he determined where the highest risk for fires would be in the spring of 2016.
sa国际传媒淚t gives you a seasonal prediction for points on the map in terms of how likely it is to get a small fire or a large fire,sa国际传媒� he said. sa国际传媒淚tsa国际传媒檚 a pretty basic output.sa国际传媒�
The vast majority of fires that did occur in April and May of that year happened in the high-risk zones identified by Grollimundsa国际传媒檚 program.
Flannigan is working on his own artificial intelligence application.
sa国际传媒淧icking up the patterns where fire growth and fire starts will be significant is where wesa国际传媒檙e focusing on to see if we can beat traditional methods,sa国际传媒� he said.
sa国际传媒淚t looks like wesa国际传媒檙e showing some promise, but Isa国际传媒檓 very cautious. It will be a long time before it goes into fire management operations.sa国际传媒�
Artificial intelligence will have stiff competition from Canadasa国际传媒檚 current methods, which Flannigan said work well and are copied globally.
Both men agree that those methods depend on the future being much like the past. Climate change threatens that assumption.
sa国际传媒淲ith climate change, wesa国际传媒檙e seeing conditions and situations that have no real analogue in the recent past,sa国际传媒� Flannigan said.
Swiss Resa国际传媒檚 data suggests that while the number of fires hasnsa国际传媒檛 changed that much, the area burned is increasing.
Donsa国际传媒檛 expect that to change, said Grollimund.
sa国际传媒淎 lot of the factors that foster wildfire risk seem to increase sa国际传媒� longer, hotter, dryer summers; wetter winters; more vegetation; more lightning.
sa国际传媒淭heresa国际传媒檚 a lot of reasons why we think, if anything, (fire risk) is going to be increasing.sa国际传媒�
Bob Weber, The Canadian Press
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