MACHINE LEARNING
Chris Van Arsdale, Climate & Energy Research Lead, Google
“ Some satellites today take a picture about every five minutes, but they’ re coarse,” notes Chris Van Arsdale, Google Research and Chairman, Earth Fire Alliance.“ You’ re lucky if you can see the city of San Francisco in the image. You’ re certainly not going to see where a fire is until it’ s a few acres in size.” Compounding this, many wildfires begin in mountainous areas where planes and drones may not fly to gather images.
Deploying responsible AI In late 2024 Google. org provided US $ 13m funding to kickstart the Firesat initiative, which is led by nonprofit organisation the Earth Fire Alliance.
FireSat can detect wildfires as small as 5x5 meters within
20 minutes
140 May 2025