Episode 250: Enhancing Fire Departments with Artificial Intelligence with Humaid AlAli

Episode notes

Here’s how the fire service can embrace AI:

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

The integration of AI in public safety and security organizations

Ethical considerations for implementing AI

How AI improves response efficiency and outcomes

Hear from Humaid AlAli - the Deputy of Fire Affairs with the Ministry of Interior , Civil Defense in the United Arab Emirates.

Humaid shares his insights into the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) within public safety and security organizations. He discusses how AI technologies, such as smart monitoring alarm systems, are being implemented in fire departments to improve response times and enhance risk assessment.

Humaid also touches on the ethical considerations involved in adopting AI and offers advice to fire service professionals on how to embrace AI as a tool for better outcomes.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro to the FRI miniseries
2. 0:35 Humaid AlAli of the UAE Ministry of Interior, Civil Defense joins at FRI
3. 1:57 Digitalizing fire departments: the UAE booth
4. 2:16 Smart monitoring alarm systems for buildings and homes
5. 3:09 Technology in firefighting and fire department administration
6. 4:32 His book on AI in UAE public safety
7. 5:16 Defining AI for public safety
8. 6:48 A UAE case study: learning from alarm data
9. 8:00 How AI will be used in the next one to five years
10. 9:44 Data, infrastructure and working with the community
11. 10:53 Lessons from the UAE floods
12. 13:15 The ethics of AI
13. 16:27 Advice for those on the fence about AI
14. 18:57 What's next: the EFO program and sharing the book
15. 20:34 An invite to TSI in December
16. 22:04 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the smart monitoring alarm system in UAE?

Humaid AlAli says UAE started two projects since 2018. One is for buildings and warehouses, linking fire alarms to vendors and then to fire station dispatchers. Some cities have reached 100 percent coverage. The second is for residential houses, launched in 2018. Today there is a regulation that each residential house should install a smoke detector with one of their exclusive vendors to be linked to operations.

Hear it at 1:57

How does Humaid AlAli define artificial intelligence for public safety?

He describes AI as a digital machine that solves patterns and issues, minimizing human interference to the lowest level. He considers it a type of technology that can solve critical issues, though he notes AI is not a new term and has been used since 1950.

Hear it at 5:16

What example does he give of AI learning from alarm data?

Humaid AlAli says the system found that a lot of alarms were coming within specific times and days. The system generated a suggestion that this might be because people use traditional charcoal on Fridays before going to prayer, which triggers the detectors. The system learned from that and suggested they add a silent alarm feature on the device so people can use it for one minute when using charcoal in the house.

Hear it at 7:02

What is his advice to firefighters worried about AI taking their jobs?

He calls that concern healthy and normal but says people need to educate themselves and change their mentality. You cannot stop AI and technological development. History shows commercial companies that refused to implement technology went out of business, and fire departments could face catastrophes or fatalities if they resist change.

Hear it at 17:18

What does Humaid AlAli say departments need to do before adopting AI?

He says you need to change your structure, hire IT people, update policies, work with vendors on new tools, and add technology and AI sessions to training academy curricula. Implementing AI with the same old policy and structure will not work.

Hear it at 17:18

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 250 transcript

Enhancing Fire Departments with Artificial Intelligence with Humaid AlAli

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Humaid AlAli

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Sofen. In this FRI miniseries, we're taking a closer look at how technology and smart solutions are shaping the future of the fire service. From the role of artificial intelligence and assessments to cutting edge tools like wildfire drones, each episode dives into how these advancements are improving firefighter safety, efficiency, and real-time decision-making. Stay tuned for some great conversations with the innovators pushing our fire service forward. Enjoy. Live on the show floor here sitting alongside Humaid AlAli, the deputy of fire affairs with Ministry of Interior, Civil Defense, United Arab Emirates. How you doing?

[0:47] Humaid AlAli: I'm fine, Kevin. Thank you for hosting me here.

[0:49] Kevin Sofen: Thank you for making the trek flying across the Atlantic and coming here to Dallas for FRI.

[0:54] Humaid AlAli: Yeah, thank you. We enjoyed that. We enjoyed the steak, actually.

[0:58] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, oh, I imagine. Yeah, Texas is known for many things, and barbecue is one of those main things.

[1:03] Humaid AlAli: Yes, sure, thank God. We are always a pleasure to be here in the U.S.

[1:07] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, oh that's wonderful. Well, so why are you here? What brings you here?

[1:10] Humaid AlAli: First of all, we're coming here to share our knowledge with our friends here from fire departments and fire chiefs, and also to show how we run our fire departments back in UAE, and also to make sure that what we believe back in UAE, other people, their opinion and their feedback about it, and also for the more collaborations and for opportunities with other entities.

[1:38] Kevin Sofen: That's awesome. And I see that you have ultimately a little setup for UAE over there, and I see there's a couple of different showcases of technology experiences going on. Can you tell me about some of the technology integrations and some of the innovation that you are leading and that you're showcasing here at FRI.

[1:57] Humaid AlAli: Sure, so the theme of the exhibition or the booth is the digitalization of fire departments. So we separate the booth to be smart cities initiatives, the implementing technology and fire departments, and the last one, the future. So in smart cities, we're coming with two projects, two initiatives, which is related the smart monitoring alarm systems. The first one is for the building and warehouse, a second one is for the residential. So back in the UAE, we start this project since 2018 with the building and warehouses, and some cities actually now they reach 100 percent, they link it to the vendor, then to the dispatcher by fire stations. So wherever you are, you are not been to worry about there is incident the fire department will reach you. The second one is the residential house. We launched this project back in 2018 and today we have a regulation that each residential house should fix a smoke detector with one of our special or exclusive vendor to be linked to our operations. Secondly, the implementation of the technology. So we show some cases about how we implement technology back in UAE and firefighting and fire safety. So in firefighting we have the readiness program which is related as we automate the incidence program with the operation with the fire operations program also with the community informations so we know the KBIs of the water uses in the building and we can anticipate if there is an issue and according to how many capacity in the flood. Also we have some software solutions for running fire departments, administrations as community risk reduction, community risk assessments. We have a special tools which basically each fire stations will run their systems by the end of their each years they will write what they will do next. Last one is education so we have platform for education and we launched it back in COVID-19, and we continue to do it. For the future, we have e-corrideness, and this e-corrideness is actually one of the main initiatives we deal with globally. We have some international association member. That's a summary of our booth.

[4:28] Kevin Sofen: So there's nothing going on?

[4:29] Humaid AlAli: Ha. Just a little.

[4:32] Kevin Sofen: Just a little bit. So I mean, there's a lot I want to dive into, but one of them is particularly this book that's sitting in front of you, and the term that you'd mentioned a little bit is, I'm reading the title, Adoption and Integration of Artificial Intelligence, AI, in UAE Public Safety and Security Organizations. AI is a buzzword that's been going on around right now, but also, as we know, it's not just a buzzword, it's a technology tool that has a lot of potential and opportunities, but also a lot of security risks and ethical conversations. I would love, in a kind of 101 perspective, from a general perspective, to start on this conversation. What is artificial intelligence in the framing of public safety? Like how would you define AI in your words?

[5:16] Humaid AlAli: So the terms is AI, it's, you know, first of all, it is not a new term. So it's been used since 1950, especially here in U.S. and one of the conference, as I mentioned in the book. So the AI, we can see it in the easy way that it is a digital machine which can solve the patterns and issue you have it. In my words, actually, I can say it's implementing a technology which will minimize the human interfere to be, let's say, the lowest things, and to solve a critical issue with you. It is one type, because now you will see a lot of AI types, and some people, they mix between the technology and AI, and for me, I don't think that AI is far away from technology. can consider it as a type of technology, if we use that type of technology, let's say in general terms. AI and public safety and security organizations maybe will found in academic research some examples, but it's mostly about the application. So we don't have that much amount of academic research and public safety. We have a lot of amount in commercials and tourists and in healthcare and military, while in public safety, we don't have that much. And that's the reason, actually, I did my research about it to find out how we can adopt AI in our organizations, and also how we can integrate the AI within our, let's say, current infrastructure systems.

[6:48] Kevin Sofen: And so to get a little bit more granular in some tangible examples, do you have any examples or case studies or use cases about how AI is being used today within UAE?

[7:02] Humaid AlAli: Yes, actually. I will attend to the smart monitoring alarm system. So when we start that one, we found that a lot of alarm coming within specific time and specific days. So the system itself generate some suggestion to us that this might be because of, you know, we have in our traditional, something we use millet knives so traditional way every Friday before they're going to the play they do it in their houses especially the old people which the detector will take it so the system itself learn from that and give us a solutions you need to have a silent alarm on your device so whenever they want to use this charcoal in the house they can use the silent alarm for one minute out tumors. So it's a type of example we get benefit from it, because we didn't know about it. The system itself generated that information because of the data inputs on that one.

[8:00] Kevin Sofen: Wow, that's awesome. And ultimately, what my perspective on it is there a way that an AI algorithm, some model, can be helpful in terms of helping save time? Can it be helpful in terms of finding a potential risk that by the human eye we would end up seeing? And so, you just gave one great example, but maybe from a larger smart city dynamic, or even from an individual firefighter operation, and maybe it isn't operational today, but what are some examples of how you think AI will be integrated in the next one to five years?

[8:34] Humaid AlAli: I think in the buildings, and mainly in fire safety or the code itself. Because there is a terms or statement that's dealing with the incidents, it's a failure. you need to deal with the answer before it's happened. So if you want to do that, you need to have, let's say, smart cities, all the data of the buildings or the data you wanted from the building, you should own it. For example, if you connect your building with automated devices to the control panel and you add some query to your software solutions according to the capacity of the flat and the usage of the water and the temperature, maybe the system itself it will guess that anticipate the fire maybe will happen this and then this times and you need to react to that particular incidence because your staff. Another example is your fire station capabilities so for example you have shortage so if you have solutions using AI and you know that in this area in this day you have specific information about it and you have, let's say, a shortage of your manpower, it will tell you that if there's incidents happen, you might suffer, you need to have more station, this is the near station. This information will be not done if you don't have machine learning and automations and another type of AI in the solutions. So in terms of adoption of the AI, you need to have, let's say, the data and you need to have the specific infrastructure between you and the community, because at the end you are fire departments, you are not working alone.

[10:13] Kevin Sofen: This is part of maybe a larger question, not just about AI, but I know Dubai and UAE is not immune from various challenges, and particularly even some weather challenges. I know in the news this year there was big rains and the floods, and I think it caught not a lot of people by surprise. How do you think, and this is, again, kind of a random curve ball, but how do you think any type of technology maybe could have helped? What kind of changes do you think will happen from that in terms of how Dubai's civil defense forces can be better prepared to respond to a potential mass flooding like that?

[10:50] Humaid AlAli: That's a good question, and also I anticipate that you will ask me these questions. So the hardest, let's say, risk we might face the weather conditions. And for us it was not surprising to have that much only the things is you know when you see something in the media sometimes it's a big why the real is like a normal yes we had some critical concerns in some area but this is what the reason we let's say have changed all our plans after what we face and this is the lesson learned. So regarding your question mainly that type of AI. I think we need to have more on this and the weather forecasting and we need to link our system to the weather forecasting so we can understand more about it and also we need to work with our with other stakeholders because at the end you are a fire department you are not the main entity or you don't own the risk so you need to work closer with other entities like the municipalities and the local governments in terms of rising the level of response. But at the end, we always say in our language, which is the K-performance indicators, how much you had impact from that. It was bad impact, how much loss you had. So at the end, if you don't have that much, the things is really good. So, you know, when you don't own the risk itself it will be more difficult. So my advice is to have a unified platform between all the entities for the other forecastings and let the program tell you what type of solution according to your capabilities. Don't forget the program if it is was made generally you cannot anticipate let's say a perfect scenario you need to have all your resource allocated in that platform with your or other entities in terms of giving you the best scenario of using the AI. And this is, by the way, this is the benefit of AI. It's not only buying a product from one market and yes, this is the node. The AI, again, I will tell you that it's minimize the human efforts, human interfere. If it is 0%, it's perfect. It's 5%, 10%, it's depending on you and how much data you have about.

[13:15] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and you just talked about some of the benefits and thank you for outlining that. And I truly believe in the forecasting and the predictive modeling and aligning that to better preparedness. But you talked about some of the benefits. I wanna flip it on its head and talk about some of the potential pitfalls and more maybe concerns. There's a lot of conversation around the ethics of AI and where should we use AI and where should we not use AI in terms of developing the information, in terms of decision-making, action-taking. And I know they're all kind of different, but what are your thoughts in terms of the conversation around the concerns or the ethics behind how AIs is becoming more integrated into everything we do.

[13:55] Humaid AlAli: This, I got a question actually about the ethics because all people are speaking about it, what's the ethics question, ethics with other departments, because sometimes you don't know what AI will bring to you. So for example, there is type of AI called super intelligence which is beyond the human brain, which I mentioned already. So back to the question about the AI ethics, I believe that you need to have, let's say, similar to the manual or standards. I know still it is hard to say it. I know in public safety, some organizations are requesting some AI manual in public safety and buildings, how we can implement it, what's the ethics about it needs more working and collaboration between all the entities, especially if there is one county or one city, but you know every day you woke up with new things. Now we know about the chat GPT and you don't know tomorrow what will happen. Maybe now there are some examples that same cars maybe put it in a human hand or a human brain so it can work in the state of his brain. So I mean a lot of things about it. But as a public safety organization or fire departments, you need to consider about the ethics when you implement the AI. and you need to make sure that you have proper collaborations and proper, as I mentioned in my book, is it benefit or not? How you can determine that the AI have benefit to you? That's not only it's nice and glossary, it's increase your let's say KBIs if you have it or it's decrease the number of fatalities. So the ethics concern is a big topic actually it cannot be answered in one sentence But my suggestion will be is to have a special committee for that in specific region if you can, or globally. Because until now, you will notice that it's under the technology committee, technology group still. They are not being identified clearly and, as fire departments, we need to work hard to, let's say, be similar to increase our position to other competitors, because I say to other folks, they are our competitors.

[16:27] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. I mean, a lot to unpack on that. Like you said, cancer in one sentence. But something that I want to continue to dive into on the other question or two before we close out is I think there's definitely still a lot of like, reluctance amongst some stakeholders in the fire service on, you know, any new tech, it's something that people look at as, is this going to take my job? Is this going to displace me? Is this going to make the work that I'm doing harder? Or am I going to be spied on? All those different things. What would you say to fire industry and fire service professionals that are on the fence or maybe kind of unwilling to accept that AI is going to be something that is a tool that's here to use and, you know, what would you say, what would be your advice for them to kind of learn how to maybe consider adopting different types of AI within their operations?

[17:18] Humaid AlAli: I can say this is a healthy and normal view from them. Yes, I am afraid from the AI, but they need to, let's say, educate themselves and change their mentality because you cannot stop AI and the development of the revolution because you want to run the fire departments or your organizations in a specific, let's say, way. The history actually gives us a good example of some commercial company which they refuse to implement technology and they are out of the business. It is similar to you will be not out of the business, but you might end up with a catastrophe and you might be ending losing your job or fatalities. So don't worry that the AI might have a bad impact. It will have always positive impacts. Why? Because you are the one who make the AI query and software, you are the one who handle it. And in terms of, let's say, I'm afraid of implementing AI, you need to change your structure a little bit. I mean, if you want to implement AI and you have the same policy and the structures, it cannot work. You need to change, you need to hire IT people, you need to change your mentality, you need to also work with your vendors to implement new stuff. You need also when you're hiring process in your training academy, you need to, let's say, have some sessions about the technology and AI. I know that it is maybe not good for some people, but I always say future is the price depending on you at the end.

[18:57] Kevin Sofen: Well said. And again, it's August, 2024. I asked you a little bit about what kind of AI in the next one, five years, but what's next for you? You've written this book and I'm excited. Thank you very much for the copy. I'm excited to read it on my plane ride home. What are you focused on in the next, you know, one to 12 months, and is there any significant events or travel or things that you?

[19:20] Humaid AlAli: As a person or in my organization?

[19:23] Kevin Sofen: Maybe both.

[19:24] Humaid AlAli: So as a person, I'm lucky that I will join the EFO course in Maryland, NFA.

[19:28] Kevin Sofen: Oh, cool.

[19:29] Humaid AlAli: So I will be the first one from Arab and Middle East to join and second, a differential attendee.

[19:34] Kevin Sofen: Awesome.

[19:35] Humaid AlAli: So I will have two years to four years journey again to write some research, and guess what? Maybe I will write something about AI there in NFA.

[19:43] Kevin Sofen: I have a feeling you probably will.

[19:45] Humaid AlAli: Also, I have some conference I plan to attend, giving a speech about the AI, and also I want to share some of the outcomes from my book so the people will understand more before they implement a new technology. For the organizations, we have, let's say, a direct plan to knowledge transfer to all countries and also to ensure that we get benefit from the feedback. We have it from the people who visit or who attend our sessions or who make contact with us, because as a ministry, we have one target is to share knowledge and also to learn from others. So I think, again, the future is good and maybe I will see you in another conference with the new things.

[20:34] Kevin Sofen: I have a feeling we will. And last year I think we had some members from the Ministry of Interior at the Technology Summit International, which is happening the first week of December 4th at 6 in Oklahoma City this year. And I think it would be fantastic to get you involved with some of the workshops. because actually facilitating some of these AI discussion workshops on not just what is AI, but how can AI be used? How can AI be implemented to extract value? Because I still think it's, yes, we've had a lot of conversations on kind of what is AI, but I want to continue to go deep into how and where and why and the real tangible meanings of how we can extract value out of AI. So I'd love to have you be involved with some of the workshops that we're planning for TSI in December.

[21:19] Humaid AlAli: I would love to go there. This is the only summit. I hear a lot about it, by the way. A lot of American friends advised me to attend this one. And, inshallah, we say in our language, that God will allow me to come there, to see you there, and I will keep in touch. And by the way, I want to thank you as a person for your efforts for broadcasting. I attend some of your sessions back in COVID-19. You work hard as a person, and I always pleasure your efforts. Thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate it.

[21:54] Kevin Sofen: Well, I admire and respect the work that you're doing. It's very important, and I'm excited to continue to collaborate. Thank you. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. I truly would love to know what you think. Send me a note, post something on Twitter. And if you were so inclined, give us a review on one of the podcast channels that you listen to. Have a great day and hope to hear from you soon.