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The Cause of the LA Fires Might Never Be Known—but AI Is Hunting for Clues
The source of more than half of all wildfires in the Western US remains unknown, so the US Forest Service has teamed up with computer scientists to create tools that can find answers.
Karen Short, a research ecologist with the Forest Service who contributed to the study and maintains a historical database of national wildfire reports, says understanding why they start is essential for preventing them and educating the public. In 2017, an Arizona couple’s choice of a blue smoke-spewing firework for a baby gender reveal party lit the , torching close to 47,000 acres. Yavar Pourmohamad, a data science PhD researcher at Boise State University who led the study, says that knowing the probable causes of a fire could help authorities warn people in high-risk areas before a blaze actually starts.
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