The Marin County Fire Department has installed six new, high-definition cameras at several mountaintop locations in Marin.
The cameras are linked to a growing network that spans five western states and a supercomputer in San Diego that may some day use artificial intelligence to spot fires quicker and predict their course.
“Really, what we’re building is a big data communications network,” said Neal Driscoll, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of California at San Diego.
UCSD, along with the University of Oregon and the University of Nevada, Reno, has formed a consortium, AlertWildfire, to help provide firefighters with access to state-of-the-art pan-tilt-zoom fire cameras and associated tools.
The new Marin cameras are located at Mount Tamalpais East, Mount Tamalpais West, Big Rock Ridge between San Rafael and Novato, Barnabe Peak East and Barnabe Peak West in the western San Geronimo Valley, and Mount Vision near Inverness.