In an Australian first, artificial intelligence will be used in South Australia's Green Triangle forestry region to monitor for bushfires.
Key points:
- The new detection technology will be operational before the 2023-2024 bushfire season
- It will be fitted to existing fire monitoring towers and to a new tower under construction at Penola North
- The Green Triangle's forestry industry is worth $680 million each year
The SA government today announced American tech company Pano AI would build fire-monitoring infrastructure in the region, using cameras, satellite technology and AI to continuously watch plantation areas.
The system is designed to detect bushfires in their early stages, before they can cause major damage to plantations and forestry infrastructure.
Green Triangle Fire Alliance chair Mike Lawson said early detection of fires was vital to the future of the industry.
"At the moment we have to go through the process of communicating the fire back, it goes through the emergency services system and then we're paged," he said.
"If we can cut that time back and get resources out to those plantations quicker, then we're going to save a lot of valuable plantation."
The new AI-led systems will be installed at fire monitoring towers across the region and will be operational before the 2023-24 bushfire season.
It will also installed at a new tower at Penola North, due to be built and operational by the summer.
Mr Lawson said the industry was preparing for dry summers ahead.
"The Bureau of Meteorology is yet to declare an El Niño, although it's looking increasingly likely," he said.
"The fuel load has increased significantly over the past couple of years because we've had relatively benign summers.
"If we do get the El Niño that will change."
Protecting a $680m industry
The new system will detect fires through an AI algorithm.
The detection will then be confirmed by a person, who will send out an alert to emergency services.
Pano AI chief commercial officer Arvind Satyam was born in Australia before moving to the United States.
He said his inspiration for the new technology came from watching Australia's Black Summer bushfires from 2019 to 2020.
"As we look at fires, large megafires, one of the determinants is being able to allocate resources quickly, and we do that by leveraging technology," he said.
"We use AI that's applied to ultra-HD cameras that's continuously getting a full panorama of the environment.
"We then use a smoke detection algorithm to work out exactly where the fire is and see how it's behaving, so you can get resources to that incident quickly.
"It also understands where it is relative to structures, to assets, so you're able to coordinate a much faster response."
The South East's forestry industry contributes around $680 million to the South Australian economy each year.
Primary Industries Minister Clare Scriven said the technology was an "important step forward" for the region's safety.
"This is really doing an important job improving our fire detection capability and of course protecting things such as our … forestry assets as well as the communities that support them."