A network of cameras perched atop remote vistas around Washington watch for wildfire every minute of every day. Equipped with artificial intelligence, these monitors spot smoke and heat to alert fire crews, whose rapid response is the best chance to contain the flames before they spiral out of control.
Although the state’s Department of Natural Resources pays a contracted vendor roughly $1 million a year for 21 cameras positioned around the state, the footage they record is not accessible to the public.
That’s an oversight that must be corrected. Providing a live feed from those viewpoints would broaden situational awareness for everyone, in an era where wildfire risks are multiplying. Emergency responders, including firefighters, could quickly survey conditions. Those living in higher risk areas would gain an invaluable way to help stay alert. And all residents should have more transparency to witness Washington’s vast evergreen forests — and the dangers they face.
A few companies dominate the emerging field in wildfire camera tech, including San Francisco-based Pano AI, creators of DNR’s network of 360-degree monitors. In Washington, Pano AI’s cameras alert the Natural Resources Department’s fire dispatchers to ignitions. But the department has no way to livestream from their cameras, Michael Kelly, DNR’s head of communications and a spokesman for Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove, said in a statement.
“If that changes, we’d certainly be open to presenting these cameras publicly,” Kelly added.
That ability can and should be added in Washington.
Some agencies in Oregon, California and other Western states have chosen another California-based startup known as ALERTWest for AI-enhanced wildfire detection. It includes public website access to a growing network of thousands of cameras. While it has already linked with feeds from the Washington State Department of Transportation’s traffic cameras, their network has few sources from perches above forests in Washington state.
One exception: ALERTWest’s website includes lookouts provided by Lake Wenatchee Fire & Rescue, an early camera adopter. David Walker, Lake Wenatchee’s fire chief, noted that even within a fire district that serves an area of about 100 square miles, the cameras’ costs are “a drop in the bucket” next to losing even a single home to wildfire.
“If we can do it, anybody can do it,” said Walker, whose district’s cameras caught a lightning-strike-started fire within two weeks of going live.
Making live camera footage public in Washington is important for three main reasons. First, it provides wildfire personnel, from the federal forest service to local fire districts, a quick access point for to-the-second conditions on the ground — a way to continuously monitor fire risks before blazes and fire behavior after they’ve broken out. Second, it gives everyone greater situational awareness to overall conditions. Finally, wildfire cameras are a public venture that should be transparent to its ultimate customers: the residents of Washington.
Think of them as the modern-day version of the fire lookout.
Footage isn’t just valuable during red-flag warnings, where wildfire danger is highest. DNR is conducting more prescribed fires to reduce fuels and make forests healthier, a tradition practiced for centuries by many Indigenous tribes. Cameras can help prescribed fire managers and others keep a close watch on the flames.
The cameras are becoming more critical on the west side of the Cascades, where wildfires are estimated to increase in both likelihood and severity, according to a recent study by Oregon State University researchers. A changing climate is making forests hotter, drier and more susceptible to volatile fire.
Granted, the camera footage should contain certain safeguards — a blurring of areas where people may congregate or could be identified, for example. But their use has become an invaluable and lifesaving method to stay ahead of 21st-century wildfire.
Other camera networks are expanding, too. The University of Oregon’s hazards lab not only makes public its camera feeds through AlertWEST; it plans to grow its own fleet to 75 by the end of the year. Washington needs to keep up. The sooner such footage can be made publicly available, the better. With parts of Washington already under a drought emergency and higher-than-expected wildfire risk forecast through September, it won’t be long before red-flag warnings could be blanketing the state.
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