Nov. 12—Five new wildfire surveillance camera stations that use artificial intelligence to look for smoke have been installed at the intersection of urban life and nature near Albuquerque and Santa Fe as part of a pilot program the state is working with with two utility companies.
More than 40 wildfire detection stations from San Francisco-based company Pano AI will be operational within two years, with five provided by Pano AI, six with state funding and the remaining 32 stations paid for by Xcel Energy and New Mexico Public Service Company, according to a state news release.
New Mexico’s climate is expected to become even drier in the coming decades due to unpredictable monsoons, and wildfires could become a bigger concern in the enchanted land. Five of the largest fires on record in state history have occurred in the past 14 years, with the two largest fires, the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire in northern New Mexico and the Black Fire northeast of Silver City, occurring in 2022.
For decades, New Mexico has relied on 911 calls and watchtowers to detect wildfire outbreaks, said New Mexico State Forester Laura McCarthy.
“This method worked because the weather wasn’t so extreme that a few hours’ delay in detection wasn’t a big problem. But on a red flag day, when it’s very windy, with relative humidity below 10% and the temperature is 98 degrees, it doesn’t work.”
The new camera stations will monitor high-risk areas 24 hours a day and provide emergency responders with their exact GPS location if a wildfire is confirmed, she said.
The technology should help fire incident commanders make better decisions about how to deploy personnel and protect public safety, McCarthy said. All fire agencies within the department’s coverage area can access the Pano AI platform and receive training on the technology at no cost to their departments.
Pano AI’s technology is used in 17 U.S. states, including Washington, Utah, and Wyoming.
Kat Williams, Pano AI’s director of government development, said each wildfire detection station has two cameras that rotate to provide a 360-degree view of the surrounding area. The station is visible within a radius of at least 16 miles. If two stations spot a potential fire, they can triangulate its location and provide latitude and longitude. Once a fire is detected, Pano AI staff review the footage to avoid false positives and send an alert via text or email to the relevant local emergency services.
Williams pulled live footage from one of the cameras near Albuquerque during a press conference Wednesday at the Bernalillo County Public Safety Training Academy. She demonstrated how different layers can be displayed on maps of a region, allowing emergency responders to examine terrain, roads, and other conditions before a fire starts. To protect your privacy, all homes shown are pixelated from the video before it is uploaded to cloud storage.
Pano’s artificial intelligence program was trained on more than 3 billion images, said Peter Ambler, the company’s vice president of global government.
McCarthy said New Mexico has tried using imagery to detect wildfires before. In 2020 and 2021, the state participated in a free pilot program with another company that uses satellite imagery to detect fires. The technique was helpful, she said, but it also made many mistakes and sometimes misidentified water vapor clouds as smoke.
Camera cost and location
Representatives from Pano AI, state officials and staff from the two utility companies could not provide specific overall or annual cost estimates when the network of monitoring stations was announced Wednesday.
McCarthy said the Legislature has allocated $300,000 to support pilot programs in 11 departments across the state. He said New Mexico’s Senate Memorial 2 Wildfire Study Group will recommend that Congress allocate an additional $2 million during next year’s 30-day session to expand the network of observation posts.
The annual cost to maintain the system will likely be less than $50,000 per station, Ambler said.
The state’s 11 detection stations will be located in the East Mountains region, near Albuquerque, and Santa Fe County. McCarthy said these locations are prioritized where lives and livelihoods could be lost in wildfires. Five of these cameras have started operating within the past few months, and the remaining six are expected to be operational by early 2026.
Xcel Energy plans to bring 15 more stations online this year and have another 15 in operation by the end of next year. Zoe Rees, regional vice president of regulatory planning and policy for Xcel Energy, said the utility operates in eastern New Mexico and the cameras will be installed in the region, focusing on high-risk residential areas and around infrastructure such as utility poles, power lines and gas lines. Lees said that while the infrastructure that supplies electricity is important, it also comes with some risks, especially with the rise in extreme weather events.
“Therefore, we feel it is prudent for the utility to ensure that recovery measures, such as installing Pano AI stations in our service areas, are in place to protect our communities,” Leeds said.
PNM is starting a pilot program with a station and two cameras in the Santa Fe Basin. Wesley Gray, PNM’s vice president of operations and engineering, said the utility is also considering other wildfire prevention technologies, including engineering controls to reduce the risk of sparks, new infrastructure fuses, and new patrol and inspection methods.
Cameras aren’t the only tools New Mexico has to fight wildfires. McCarthy said the state Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources is also investing $33.5 million in forest thinning funds to create thinning buffers around communities.
The state’s 11-station pilot program “is not a state government or state taxpayer expense. It is a direct investment in families, communities, land and what makes New Mexico beautiful,” said Lieutenant Governor Howie Morales.
