Humans cause 90% of wildfires. Could computers prevent 100%? | Hard Reset Podcast Episode #12
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Wildfire season length, frequency, and burn area have increased in the past few decades. To combat this, scientists are combining supercomputer technology with indigenous prescribed burn practices.
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Wildfires have been growing in severity and intensity since the 1980’s. As climate change encourages hotter, drier seasons, fire is able to catch and spread rapidly, destroying the homes and ecosystems in its path.
To fight these megafires, fire scientists, machine learning experts, and data science researchers have come together at San Diego’s WIFIRE Lab in an effort to reduce these natural disasters.
By utilizing new AI computer detection technologies in tandem with indigenous practices like prescribed burns, WIFIRE is able to reduce the likelihood of wildfires before they even start.
0:00 Welcome to the Hard Reset Podcast
01:00 What makes this a Hard Reset?
04:16 How is WIFIRE changing our approach to firefighting?
11:17 Could the U.S. government help this tech grow?
19:35 How does this Hard Reset relate to climate change?
21:120 How could this technology be scaled?
24:44 What was the audience response to this tech?
39:59 What is the impact of this technology?
45:25 What were the meanest comments we got?
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I would expect drones could be very useful in either extinguishing brush fires or corralling controlled burns, as they could routinely go into areas too dangerous or difficult for humans. I have seen video demonstrations of firefighting drones with hoses hanging down from them, but one can visualize large ones that would be able to carry their own water, replenished continuously by other drones forming bucket brigades drawing from nearby lakes, rivers, or oceans. For that matter, they could also get their batteries switched out that way and thus stay in the air indefinitely.
We talked a bit about this in our episode on Strongwater - ua-cam.com/video/uVurhiRPRAg/v-deo.htmlsi=l-bFrgao3vQpH82w - which is a new fire retardant that is both safe for the environment and safe to be used in helicopters and drones. Many existing fire retardants that are currently widely used are incompatible with helicopters and drones because they're corrosive and can damage the rotors.
I'm looming forward to the new OR retro fitted helicopters with the speakers that will blast firea out with the specific frequency that is similar to a sonic boom. Also maybe retrofit some older military vehicles with large fire extinguisher tanks.
Side thought, I wonder if the guy with the heavy vocal fry has ever thought of attempting Mongolian singing...
hahahah, its so artificial how he try to bold his voice.
I am curious to know are these episodes scripted? Like does everyone knows what questions to ask and in which order? How can you guys have such a structured talk?
Amazing episode. Another angle for a hard reset could be to think how we can leverage this controlled burning to generate energy from it?
I have few questions related to this.
- When you burn the soil it gets harder there by blocking oxygen to go deep and esentially makes it dead in the long run. Does these controlled burning have same impact?
- There are forest across the entire globe. Why every forests do not face these wild-fires the way America faces it?
Hey! Thank you for watching!
As for your first question - we don't typically script anything for these. We have a format we typically follow for every episode, and we generally try to cover anything that we couldn't fit into the original content. Because this is unscripted we sometimes uncover questions we don't know the answer to, so we try to be transparent about that and say "I don't know" when that happens!
Which is true of your second question! I didn't know that about what happens when you burn the soil - and it's super fascinating! I'm curious if that's a result of the heat interacting with elements like silica in the soil and fusing them? I'd be curious to find out more! But because I didn't know the answer to your question I did a little looking around, and it looks like there are some studies that get to this very question.
One quote from this report ( www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/frsl.htm) was particularly interesting, as it implies that how soil responds is dependent on the intensity of the fire:
"The effects of fire on soil microbes is dependent to a large extent upon fire intensity. The responses of soil microbes to fires range from no detectable effect in low intensity fires to total sterilization of the surface layers of soil in very hot wildfires (see Joergensen and Hodges 1970; and Renbuss et al. 1973)."
I also found this study from the US Forest Service ( www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/33045 ), which had some interesting tidbits as well:
" After the burn, moderate to extreme repellency increased significantly to 63% of the soil surface. Soil water repellency
at the surface returned to near pre-fire values 76 d after the burn. Because there was no rainfall during this time, we attributed this change to physical and biologic factors."
and
"At the 2 cm depth, 7 d post-fire increase in water repellency was likely due to volatilization and recondensation of organics moving downward on a temperature gradient. The relatively low increase in repellency with depth was a reflection of the low to moderate intensity of the burn."
Also, I skimmed this Undergraduate Thesis ( digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1338&context=envstudtheses ) by Kate Nelson and it was pretty informative- generally it says there's not enough data to know for sure, but there are some clear trends that pop out from the very limited data set, and it seems likely (to me) that the intensity of the fire plays a big role in how soil reacts.
As for your second question, I think wildfires in the U.S. might get proportionately more media coverage than they do in other parts of the world - so I'm not entirely confident that they're worse here than anywhere else. Canada, Australia, Greece and many other countries have also had big problems with wildfires in recent years. So I think there are some global factors at play here - but I do also think that the US has over emphasized fire suppression as it's only strategy in the west. I think the contrast between the eastern and western united states might be more telling - and I'm curious if there's any solid data on the difference in wildfire intensity and its correlation with controlled burning policies.
In short - It doesn't seem there are simple, clear answers to these questions - but there are people far smarter than me who are working on these kinds of problems!
Where can I see this video y'all keep referencing
Watch the original episode on WIFIRE here ► ua-cam.com/video/W7V13ZL-ysE/v-deo.html/?
I would like to the job in the forest
Freethink,
Please do an UNCIVILIZATION - PARADISE REGAINED! series where people are ENJOYING LIFE INSTEAD OF SLAVING(WORKING) IT AWAY!
There are 600,000 homeless throughout the United States. It’s estimated approximately half are already in California.
Please consider providing those that can… education, skills training AND decent money for those interested.
No denigrating these people. There are LOTS of construction workers using cocaine. Frankly… what drug do you think you should do to fight fires?
So… lose the shame crap and allow people to do the work… a minimum of a week commitment. If they decide it’s not right for them… honor it.
Not thinking of them as a first option is disrespectful, however. Many of them WANT something to do.
Fuel is also good to heat your home we need buisnesses making money from going through the woods and make fuel out of the bushes. Farming wood for your fireplace. Having multiple benefits at the same time. Reduce reliance on fossile fuels, protecting the forest, save money for the individual and not paying russia and saudi Arabia who do not use the money in good ways.
I dont get it, we are talking about a new World with machines instead of human - why would we nee to Compute anything to prevent wild fires as most wild fires are caused by waste, thrown cigaretas, cars with hot exaust pipes driven onto dry Gras and so on. Computers would not do this in the first place.?!
Cause fire still happen without human means
25:21
@@TheHotshott55 sorry, i still don't get the purpose of this video
@@TecSanentoHumans cause more problems than solutions. Mostly due to ignorance or misunderstanding.
I’m sorry but your video too long for me I suggest you guys make it no more than 30 minutes max thank you
Gotta get control of your attention span bro. Youre giving up your power if you can’t get through 49 mins, or maybe you’re not interested?
Anything meaningful needs to last more than 30 minutes