**Daegu Successfully Contained Wildfire in 1 Hour and 33 Minutes**
Daegu’s forest fire prevention ICT platform detected smoke 6~7 minutes faster than the Korea Forest Service. Since April of last year, Daegu has been incorporating SphereAX’s ‘FireWatcher’ smoke detection solution to prevent wildfires.
[Seoul Economy] On February 7th, SphereAX, a specialist in artificial intelligence (AI), announced that its AI-driven wildfire prevention ICT platform played a significant role in halting the spread of, and quickly extinguishing, a wildfire on a hill in Baekan-dong, Daegu during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The wildfire broke out on the morning of January 25th in Baekan-dong, where the forest authorities launched an operation including 6 helicopters, 33 vehicles, and 96 personnel, successfully extinguishing the fire in 1 hour and 33 minutes.
AI technology was pivotal in the early containment of this wildfire. Since last April, Daegu has been implementing an AI-based wildfire prevention ICT platform to forestall wildfires.
In the latest incident, the AI detected the wildfire smoke 6~7 minutes earlier than the Korea Forest Service and also provided the exact location of the ignition, increasing the chances of a swift response.
Daegu’s wildfire prevention ICT platform is built with SphereAX’s smoke detection solution, ‘FireWatcher’, which incorporates AI video analysis and functionality.
‘FireWatcher’ employs deep learning video analysis to detect smoke, rather than flames, from multi-channel CCTV footage. It minimizes false detections by distinguishing smoke from similar-looking clouds, fog, steam, and mist using object identification and recognition capabilities.
It also estimates the location of smoke within video footage, providing crucial position information to firefighting helicopters and teams after detecting wildfire smoke.
SphereAX emphasized that the development process involved sophisticated smoke image generation modeling distinct to various fire sites including urban, factory, and forest fires, showcasing high technical proficiency.
Notably, it has received a first-grade GS (Good Software) certification in Korea.
Functionality-wise, it achieved a 93.41% accuracy rate in real-time smoke detection in a 50-channel CCTV environment during tests by the Korea Testing Laboratory (KTL), and obtained the highest level certification in the Data Quality Certification System (DQ) designated by the Ministry of Science and ICT, proving its reliability.
Yunha Park, CEO of SphereAX, stated, “With the increasing frequency and scale of wildfires globally, due in part to climate change, AI technology that monitors and predicts wildfires 24/7 is becoming essential.”