SUPERIOR, Colo. — Nearly two years after the Marshall Fire, Xcel Energy announced the deployment of 21 wildfire detection cameras statewide in partnership with San Francisco-based Pano AI.Xcel still denies any culpability for starting the fire but says its first priority is to protect public safety.
“You marry the hardware of the camera with the software of the artificial intelligence – so it allows you to detect the smoke, determine that it is, in fact, smoke and be able to precisely determine the location of that,” said Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy Colorado. “So, it allows for early detection and then it allows for rapid deployment of first responders to precisely the location of the fire.
“Colorado would actually be our largest deployment of any state right now,” said Pano AI’s Arvind Satyam. “Artificial intelligence to detect smoke during the day, we’ll look at heat signatures at night.”