AFAC is a member of the Global AI Collaborative: Wildfires, a strategic initiative supported by Google.org. Its mission is to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform how the world understands, detects, and manages wildfires.

The Collaborative brings together leading not-for-profits, academic institutions, government agencies, and companies to address the escalating threat of wildfires through coordinated funding, cutting-edge science, emerging technology, and on-the-ground applications.

The Collaborative is an intentionally broad and inclusive initiative with more than 15 partner organisations and many additional partners to foster alignment, collaboration, and strategic integration of efforts.

Key members and contributors of the Collaborative include:

• AFAC
• Google.org
• Earth Fire alliance
• CSIRO
• NASA FIRMS and FireSense
• OroraTech
• Caltech and JPL
• Environmental Defence Fund
• Planscape
• Google Research
• University of California, San Diego
• Western Fire Chiefs Association
• Woodwell Climate Research Centre
• World Economic Forum
• Watch Duty
• Food and Agriculture Organisation UN
• Spatial Informatics Group.

A visual map of participating organisations can be found here.

The Collaborative will accelerate the development and use of AI powered solutions to help track wildfires in near real time, quantify fire risk, and ultimately reduce the economic, humanitarian, and environmental damages that are the result of wildfires on a global scale.

The Collaborative is organised into 4 main workstreams, each targeting a critical aspect of wildfire technology and management. These workstreams are expansion and integration or Earth observation systems, advancing fire behaviour modelling, operationalising wildfire technology, and wildfire ecosystem assessments.

To achieve its mission, the Collaborative meets at global events, held both online and in-person, to share progress and launch joint workstreams. By exchanging knowledge with one and other, the Collaborative accelerates the use of AI by pooling data, models and operational insight across organisations.

This initiative marks a significant step forward in harnessing the potential of AI and emerging technologies to strengthen bushfire resilience across Australia and New Zealand.

For more information on the Global AI Collaborative: Wildfires, please contact AFAC’s Samantha Alexander or Owen Ziebell.