Google AI and 52 satellites are designed to detect small forest fires in their early stages

Early next year, Google and its partners plan to launch the first batch of satellites that will later collectively provide frequently updated close-up images of wildfires around the world and provide data that could help firefighters fight fires faster, more effectively and safely.

The online search giant’s nonprofit and research arms have worked with the Moore Foundation, the Environmental Defense Fund, satellite company Muon Space and others to deploy 52 satellites with specially designed sensors over the next few years.

Accurate satellite images every 20 minutes

The satellites, called FireSat, will be able to detect fires up to five by five meters in size from any part of the world. Once the entire constellation is built, the system should be able to update these images about every 20 minutes, the group says.

These capabilities would represent a significant improvement over the satellites that fire departments currently believe provide data. In general, they provide either high-resolution images that do not update quickly enough to accurately track fires, or frequently updated relatively low-resolution images.

The collaboration with the Earth Fire Alliance will also leverage Google’s wildfire AI tools, which are trained to detect early signs of wildfires and track their progress to draw additional insights from the data.

The images and analysis are made available free of charge to fire departments around the world to improve understanding of where fires are, where they are moving and how hot they are burning. The information could help authorities fight small fires before they become raging infernos, direct limited firefighting resources where they will provide the greatest benefit and evacuate people using the safest routes.

Detect fire – without risk of confusion

“Many things in satellite images of Earth can be mistaken for a fire: a glint, a hot roof, smoke from another fire,” says Chris Van Arsdale, head of climate and energy research at Google Research and chair of the Earth Fire Alliance. “Detecting fires becomes like looking for needles in a world full of haystacks.” Solving this problem will allow first responders to act quickly and accurately when a fire is detected.”

The organizations involved have announced that Google.org, the company’s nonprofit arm, has committed $13 million to the program and that the first launch is planned for next year.

Observers believe FireSat could play an important role in firefighting by allowing fire departments to extinguish small fires before they become too large and by informing effective firefighting strategies when they reach that point have exceeded.

“These satellites will reduce the fog of war,” says Michael Wara, meaning that important information that is often lost in such confusing situations will now be easier to see. Wara is director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, which focuses on fire response issues, and a member of the advisory board of the Moore Foundation’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative. “For example, when a situation is really dynamic and very dangerous for the firefighters and they’re trying to make decisions very quickly about whether to intervene to protect buildings or try to evacuate people.”

Training the AI ​​on controlled fires

Google Research developed the sensors for the satellite and tested them and the company’s AI fire detection models by flying over controlled fires in California. Google intended to work with the Earth Fire Alliance “to ensure that AI can help make this data as useful as possible and that wildfire information is disseminated as widely as possible,” the company said.

Google’s Van Arsdale says providing images of every incident around the world from start to finish will be hugely valuable to scientists studying wildfires and climate change.

“We can combine this data with Google’s existing models of the Earth to improve our understanding of fire behavior and fire dynamics across all of Earth’s ecosystems,” he says. “All of these have the potential to reduce the simultaneous ecological and social impacts of fires and improve human health and safety.”

In particular, it could improve fire risk assessment and our understanding of the most effective means of preventing or slowing the spread of fires. For example, communities could determine where it would be most cost-effective to remove trees and brush.

Targeted measures

Given the high costs and limited resources available for managing forest lands, another important goal of the program is figuring out how best to carry out such measures, says Genny Biggs, program director of the Moors’ Wildfire Resilience Initiative Foundation.

The first satellite, scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket early next year, will be fully functional apart from some data transfer capabilities. The goals of the “Protoflight” mission include testing the onboard systems and the data they send. The Earth Fire Alliance will work with a handful of agencies taking the first steps to prepare for the next phases.

The group aimed to launch three fully functional satellites in 2026 and deploy additional satellites in subsequent years. Muon Space will build and operate the satellites.

Constellation with 52 satellites

Once about half of the constellation is operational, authorities around the world will receive up-to-date information on wildfires, says Brian Collins, executive director of the Earth Fire Alliance. The Earth Fire Alliance hopes to launch all 52 satellites by the end of this decade.

Each satellite is designed to last about five years, so the organization will eventually need to deploy ten more satellites each year to maintain the constellation.

The Earth Fire Alliance has secured approximately two-thirds of the funding needed for the first phase of the program, which includes the first four launches. The organization will need to raise additional funds from government agencies, international organizations, philanthropists and other groups to deploy, maintain and operate the entire constellation. The total cost is estimated at over $400 million. That’s probably a worthwhile investment given that it represents only “one-thousandth of the economic losses caused annually by extreme wildfires in the U.S. alone.”

The article is by James Temple. He is a senior editor at the US edition of MIT Technology Review and writes about energy and climate change.