CALGARY — For the last 120 years, fires were often detected by solitary workers scanning the horizon from watchtowers high above the treetops. 

Today, as costs from wildfire damages balloon and as blazes threaten populated areas like Labrador City this week, the systems used to detect, manage and combat wildfires are advancing fast. Backed by a wave of public and private funding, companies are developing a suite of technologies, from artificial intelligence to night-vision helicopters to image-gathering drones, in order to improve wildfire responses.

Canadian wildland fire-suppression costs have increased on average around $150 million per decade, and have exceeded $1 billion six out of the last 10 years, according to Natural Resources Canada data. Analysts expect the trend to continue.

That has prompted governments to seek out new lines of defence, and helped establish a new but fast-growing global wildfire protection industry worth around US$8.5 billion, according to some estimates. That could more than double to US$20 billion by 2031 as wildfires become more frequent and more severe—blazes in the forests of western Canada and the U.S. have grown 11-fold in the 20 years ending 2023—and as new investors enter the fray. Microsoft, insurance provider Intact Insurance, Canadian telcos Telus and Rogers, and various venture capital funds like San Francisco-based Convective Capital, have backed and adopted wildfire protection startups. 

Vancouver imaging company Spexi is just one example of the latest in wildfire protection capability, and an illustration of how companies are merging new technology into increasingly intelligent and integrated defence systems. 

The company uses small drones to capture detailed images of forested areas and then scans those images using AI to determine forest density, vegetation types and the age of trees. By determining whether trees are lying at an angle, the technology also scans for the presence of deadfall—a dangerous fire hazard, given that fallen trees act like ladders for flame.

The technology makes up one narrow slice within the spectrum of wildfire-fighting technology, but Spexi CEO Bill Lakeland said companies like his could eventually integrate their capabilities into much broader AI-driven systems. 

“We’re a piece in that predictive modelling product,” Lakeland said. 

Telus has backed wildfire startups through its $100-million Pollinator Fund, investing in Dryad, a German company that uses sensors to detect early-stage wildfires, and Flash Forest, an Ontario-based startup that uses drones to drop tree seedlings into hard-to-reach areas for fire remediation purposes. (Telus led Flash Forest’s $11.4-million Series A fundraising last year). 

In May, Intact Financial partnered with Montana-based Wildfire Defense Systems to offer what the company claims is a first-of-its kind service in Canada to help property owners in Alberta and B.C. clear dangerous materials from their homes when immediately threatened by fire. Edmonton-based AltaML developed an AI-driven wildfire response program for the Alberta government that operates on Microsoft’s Azure network. 

Blair Miller, a managing partner at Telus’s Pollinator Fund, said there’s been “a significant uptick” in government and private sector appetites to modernize wildfire response as the costs of natural disasters increase. 

“We look at it across the spectrum, from ultra-early wildfire detection to opportunities to help on wildfire intervention and remediation,” he said. 

Graham Erickson, who built AltaML’s system alongside other developers, said they draw from more than 100 weather stations, previous fire data and other sources and feed that information into an AI that tries to forecast fire activities. The technology, he says, is intended to assist fire-management specialists rather than replace them.  

“Our CEO likes to call us a blue-collar AI company, because we really are kind of automating the boring stuff and helping people do jobs,” Erickson said. 

Spexi, which counts Vancouver-based NBA Top Shot developer Dapper Labs as a backer, uses technology that can be used for a range of services beyond wildfires, CEO Lakeland said. But so far the company has signed contracts with the federal government, B.C and the municipality of Kelowna for wildfire-related purposes, and plans to pursue more. 

The company doesn’t fly its drones itself, but instead pays local operators, hired through a public bidding process, to fly predetermined routes. That decentralized structure, Lakeland said, lets governments get sharper imaging for a lower cost than other alternatives. 

“It’s incredible the reach we can get to with this platform,” he said. “It’s higher resolution and we can refresh it very quickly. Like, aircraft data takes months to get in a hard drive. Satellite data is expensive and takes a while to get access to.”

Since April 8 the company has captured over 750,000 acres of land through hired third-party operators, enough to fill more than 34,000 hexes on Lakeland’s dashboard. 

“You’d have a hard time doing that with an airplane.”