Google’s wildfire detection is out there in US, Mexico, Canada and elements of Australia • TechCrunch

At an AI-focused press occasion at this time in New York, Google introduced that it’s bringing its AI-powered wildfire detection system to the U.S. Canada, Mexico and elements of Australia. It’s one in all a number of “AI for good” efforts the corporate detailed this morning, which additionally included Google’s efforts to increase flood forecasting to extra areas world wide.

The beforehand introduced system makes use of machine studying fashions educated on satellite tv for pc knowledge to trace fires in real-time and predict the way it will unfold. The function is initially targeted on serving to first responders decide how greatest to manage the hearth.

This time final yr, Google introduced that the know-how was being added as a layer in Google Maps. The corporate famous on the time,

[W]e’re now bringing all of Google’s wildfire data collectively and launching it globally with a brand new layer on Google Maps. With the wildfire layer, you will get up-to-date particulars about a number of fires directly, permitting you to make fast, knowledgeable choices throughout occasions of emergency. Simply faucet on a fireplace to see accessible hyperlinks to assets from native governments, comparable to emergency web sites, cellphone numbers for assist and data, and evacuation particulars. When accessible, you may also see essential particulars in regards to the fireplace, comparable to its containment, what number of acres have burned, and when all this data was final reported.

The function joins an identical ML-based flood forecasting function introduced again in 2018. That function is now being expanded to a further 18 nations.