Getting a clearer picture of wildfires from thousands of miles into space
Marketplace Tech
English - August 13, 2021 10:08 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsTechnology Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: A tech optimist reacts to a not-so-optimistic climate report
The Dixie fire in Northern California has spread more than 700 square miles, making it the largest single fire in California history. There are more than 5,000 firefighters working on the ground to contain it. Increasingly, technology is aiding firefighting efforts like this one — from above. Andre Coleman, a data scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, helped create a new system that uses data from satellites to map the boundaries of a fire, multiple times a day, and predict what it will do next. He says it’s faster and more precise than traditional fire imaging.