Throughout history, adversity has often ignited unparalleled innovation. The crucible of World War II witnessed the emergence of pivotal advancements – penicillin, jet engines and the electric computer – all essential products born of necessity during a global conflict.
Moving to recent times, the catastrophic Australian ‘Black Summer’ bushfires of 2019–2020 starkly embody this theme of innovation born from hardship.
As an Australian, the ‘Black Summer’ bushfire season will forever remain etched in my memory. The relentless megafires that swept across the east coast of Australia for months at a time intensified by climate change, claimed lives, devastated landscapes and revealed critical limitations. These fires highlighted our nation’s need to better harness incident data, fire modelling technology, and streamline often cumbersome analysis processes.
This need is perfectly encapsulated in how Incident Controllers grappled to locate a strike team of fire trucks on an agency’s Common Operating Picture – a shared mapping interface – but could effortlessly track the live location of their UberEats order on their phone.
Amidst the chaos and destruction, the stark contrast between tracking lunch deliveries and the struggle to locate essential firefighting resources exemplified the disparities in the adoption of these technologies. The urgent need for improvement became glaringly evident.
The Black Summer bushfires triggered not just devastation but a fervent pursuit for solutions. Much like how World War II prompted significant technological advancements, this catastrophic event served as a catalyst for refocusing attention on the sector. In today’s context, embracing sustainable solutions almost always necessitates a deeper commitment to technology. For the fire sector, this required a fundamental shift in their mindset towards how and with what they fight wildfires.
In the past, there was a prevailing belief within the firefighting community that firefighting assets – trucks, planes, helicopters and boats – were sufficient for extinguishing fires. While these resources are undeniably crucial and actively combat fires, their standalone efficacy in suppressing the increasingly complex megafires of today has significantly diminished.
The stark reality we face is that solely increasing the scale of our responding resources no longer guarantees the extinguishing of a megafire, due to its size, speed and intensity. This sobering reality was made evident during the Black Summer bushfires where the fires persisted until much-needed rain finally aided their extinguishment in March 2020. What became evident is that, on the whole, additional resources only compound the complexity of incident management, and with it the cognitive load on decision-makers.
This underscores the challenges in integrating cutting-edge technology like airborne imagery with legacy systems or offline processes such as paper maps. Perpetuating a reliance on manual processes and rushed analysis, often likened to the ‘fog of war’, resulting in the ineffective use of firefighting assets. In some cases, resources being withheld, stockpiled or staged for hours or days due to fear of what could happen, rather than focusing on the actualities of a situation.
The fundamental shift in the industry’s mindset following Black Summer was the acknowledgment that wildfire management extends beyond firefighting assets. It now involves adopting proactive measures to prevent, predict and mitigate risk in the landscape before a fire occurs, facilitated by automated technology. Leveraging automated early warning systems, landscape risk monitoring algorithms, cloud-based fire modelling engines and single-pane-of-glass incident management platforms illustrates how technology doesn’t replace but enhances processes, resolves bottlenecks and better equips decision-makers.
The rapid adoption of this technology has only been possible by exploring solutions beyond the fire sector, tapping into diverse industries like agriculture, defence and information technology. These sectors tackled similar problems or aspects thereof, expediting the integration of innovative approaches to wildfire management. This convergence has inadvertently fostered the birth of a new industry specialisation – the Fire-Tech Industry.
The emergence of the Fire-Tech Industry and its impact on the wider fire sector following the 2019–2020 fire season has been remarkable, reflected notably in events like the annual Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) conference. Historically, these gatherings primarily featured manufactures and providers of traditional firefighting equipment – trucks, hoses and physical apparatus. However, in recent years, whilst these conventional providers remain prevalent, the conference’s vendors have evolved to feature a diverse array of cutting-edge technologies and solutions focused on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation and spatial technologies.
This evolution has also been complemented by substantial financial investment from both Federal and state governments in Australia. Through grants and funding initiatives, these governments are actively supporting the development of Fire-Tech innovations and the long-term benefits it has for society.
While tragic events like the Black Summer bushfires significantly contributed to the inception of the Fire-Tech industry and the widespread adoption of emerging technology, we must also recognise the current tipping point in computing and AI, and the roles they’ve played. Much like penicillin, discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 but not widely adopted until World War II, these technological advancements have been in development for over a decade – some for multiple decades.
Enabling technologies like cloud computing, big data processing, low-orbiting satellites and machine learning have matured – accelerated by horrific events like Black Summer – to a point where their application is no longer experimental but crucial in the fire sector.
Society has also developed an increased understanding and expectation of AI, thanks to our growing reliance on it in our daily lives. Examples like Deep Learning in self-driving cars or Machine Learning powering language models in chatbots such as ChatGPT are well known, showcasing AI’s practical applications.
We should not fear the Fire-Tech Industry; instead, we should view it as an opportunity to address prevalent issues within the sector. The decline in volunteerism, coupled with an ageing volunteer force and persistent growth in fire seasons, will only accelerate the need to capture the lived experience and expertise of these seasoned firefighters. Fire-Tech offers a unique opportunity to capture this invaluable experience and create central knowledge hubs. These repositories, housing decades of lived experience, combined with AI can inform future response strategies, risk mitigation treatments and more, emphasising our increasing reliance on automated systems.
Similar to what has been observed in other industries, the full embrace of Fire-Tech by all agencies will not render our human firefighters obsolete. Rather, its integration will refine and optimise their roles. No longer restrained by an overwhelming influx of data, this technology has the capability to autonomously sift through vast and disparate information streams only surfacing to decision-makers the refined insights needed to take action. This will empower decision-makers to implement suppression strategies with greater confidence and accuracy.
Comparable to the post-World War II era, albeit driven by different motivations, we mustn’t allow our quest for innovation in the Fire-Tech industry to stagnate. The widespread adoption of AI technology, the establishment of central knowledge repositories, and the integration of near-real-time satellite imagery will only increase the sector’s capabilities to prevent, predict, respond to and mitigate wildfire events. The realm of possibilities extends even further – envisioning incident management software ecosystems ready to accommodate autonomous firebombing aircraft the size of Blackhawk helicopters or self-driving fire trucks, seamlessly picking up their crew en route to an incident. These advancements, once the realm of imagination, now stand on the cusp of reality, underscoring the potential of technology in continuing to revolutionise firefighting strategies and bolster our preparedness against wildfires.
The emergence of the Fire-Tech Industry in Australia following the 2019–2020 fire season stands as a testament to humanity’s resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity. It marks a pivotal shift in firefighting methodologies, fusing time-honoured expertise with cutting-edge technology. As we stride into the future, the integration of Fire-Tech isn’t designed to replace the indispensable human element of firefighting. Instead, it presents an opportunity for synergy, where technology empowers the capabilities of our decision-makers. By embracing this evolution, we pave the way for future generations, offering a more efficient and informed approach in safeguarding lives, landscapes and communities against the destructive force of megafires.
About the Author
Thomas Hart
Thomas Hart serves as the Customer Solutions Manager at Firestory, an Australian-originated fire intelligence platform. Over the past four years, he has acquired deep domain knowledge working with some of the world’s largest fire agencies. He’s a volunteer firefighter based in Sydney, Australia.
