Tell your state leaders to check out AI for wildfire prevention!

Electric utilities across America are increasingly using AI to prevent wildfires. AI models from startups like Overstory and Rhizome are trained to analyze high-end satellite imagery to identify specific points of high wildfire risk across hundreds of miles of power line networks, allowing the utility to dispatch workers to trim dangling tree branches above power lines, clear dry brush beneath power lines, or replace flammable wooden poles in vulnerable locations.

Overstory’s AI is trained on a database of arborists’ expertise on diseased or dying trees that need trimming before they fall on power lines, and Rhizome’s gridFIRM tool can also integrate relevant information like nearby weather trends and property records.

Using AI to find the highest-risk spots to trim is considerably cheaper than the preexisting standard of sending out crews to manually inspect hundreds of miles of power lines for too-close vegetation, and immensely cheaper than burying power lines underground, which is excellent for safety but can cost over $3 million per mile.

Power lines sparking vegetation combustion have ignited many deadly fires (notably including the 2018 Camp Fire that caused 85 deaths, displaced over 50,000 people, and leveled four towns), so faster and more scalable power line vegetation checks is a much-needed innovation!

Furthermore, Arizona is already using models from Pano (a different AI startup) plus networks of landscape-overlooking cameras to detect smoke wisps for early wildfire containment. This still-under-construction system has already helped enable the successful early detection and containment of the Brady Fire in February 2025.

As drier and hotter conditions proliferate, wildfire prevention and detection technology is increasingly relevant across all of the United States, even in the eastern U.S. where it hasn’t historically been a major problem. New AI wildfire management tools are starting to be adopted by utilities and state land management agencies nationwide. State leaders should support the deployment of these innovative disaster-prevention systems!

Tell your state leaders to check out AI for wildfire prevention!