Smart Firefighting Podcast

Episode 270: Providing Global Fire Capability and Data Equity with Karen O’Connor

Published

Guests: Karen O'Connor

Topics: Data & CAD, Wildfire

Episode notes

Here’s how Earth Fire Alliance is enhancing global fire monitoring:

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:

How Earth Fire Alliance provides data equity and real-time situational awareness to fire agencies

How their partnership with XPRIZE is driving innovation in Earth observation technology

Insights on better tools for decision-making and risk reduction

Hear from Karen O'Connor - the Founding Principal at the Earth Fire Alliance .

Karen introduces Earth Fire’s ambitious mission to revolutionize fire monitoring through a new constellation of satellites. As a nonprofit organization, they are dedicated to providing global fire capability and ensuring data equity for fire agencies around the world. The satellites, designed for real-time fire monitoring, offer a high-resolution pixel size of 80 meters with updates every 20 minutes, allowing agencies to gain situational awareness and make informed decisions.

The conversation also explores the Earth Fire’s collaboration with XPRIZE , leveraging Earth observation technology and benefiting from cutting-edge innovations developed through the competition. With the satellite launch just months away, the Earth Fire Alliance is eager to provide fire agencies with critical data to enhance their response and risk reduction efforts.

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

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Chapters

  1. 0:00 Intro from the IFE booth at AFAC 2024
  2. 0:50 Karen O'Connor joins
  3. 1:24 What Earth Fire Alliance is and why it exists
  4. 2:34 Data equity and a new global capability
  5. 3:53 80 meter pixels every 20 minutes
  6. 4:47 Prescribed burning and risk reduction
  7. 5:15 Working with XPRIZE
  8. 6:17 How Karen got into fire
  9. 8:00 New satellites in low Earth orbit
  10. 9:06 What Karen is most excited about
  11. 10:05 The Institution of Fire Engineers
  12. 10:58 Final message: change the game
  13. 12:06 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the Earth Fire Alliance and what does it aim to provide?

Karen O'Connor says the Earth Fire Alliance is a new nonprofit that aims to provide data at a fidelity fire agencies have not had access to in the past and give that capability globally so everyone gets access equitably. The organization focuses on real-time fire monitoring through satellites.

Hear it at 1:29

What satellite constellation is the Earth Fire Alliance building?

Karen O'Connor explains they are building a constellation of 50 plus satellites tuned specifically to look for fire in the landscape. The constellation will have a pixel size of about 80 meters, able to potentially see a hotspot fire as small as five meters in diameter, with an update every 20 minutes on average globally.

Hear it at 2:57

How does the Earth Fire Alliance use the XPRIZE program?

Karen O'Connor says she works with XPRIZE in a separate role and sees huge value in how it activates the innovation community to make improvements on space-based fire detection. She wants the satellite constellation to benefit from the analytics improvements and innovations developed by teams in the XPRIZE, and plans to collaborate with them once that stream is complete.

Hear it at 5:29

When will the Earth Fire Alliance satellites launch?

Karen O'Connor says they are getting ready to launch the satellites in a few months and have their launch slots ready.

Hear it at 9:10

Transcript

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

Ep 270 transcript

Providing Global Fire Capability and Data Equity with Karen O’Connor

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Karen O'Connor

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 a mini Smart Firefighting podcast series, recorded live at the Institute of Fire Engineers booth during the 2024 AFAC Show Down Under in Sydney, Australia. Throughout these conversations, we dive into critical issues like fire safety, emerging technologies, diversity in the fire service, and innovative solutions for emergency response. Billy does fascinating insights from leaders around the world on how we can build a safer and more resilient future. Karen O'Connor, the founding principal of the Earth Fire Alliance, discusses their mission to provide real-time fire monitoring through satellite constellations. She explains how their data enhances fire agency decision-making and explores partnerships with XPRIZE and fire chiefs worldwide. We are back in the Tim Tam arena, I guess we could call it, alongside Karen O'Connor with the Earth Fire Alliance, Karen, how you doing?

[0:59] Karen O'Connor: Good, how have you been, Kevin?

[1:01] Kevin Sofen: I've been quite well. It's been, nothing's happened since I last saw you at the WorldFire Congress. That's right. It's been very boring.

[1:08] Karen O'Connor: Well, we've been busy.

[1:09] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, being facetious in the sense that I know you've had a lot going on and I really enjoyed, one, I love the name of your organization. I very much personally am very deep into all things, water and fire tech and earth, wind, fire, all that. For those that are unaware of Earth Fire Alliance, what is it and why does it exist?

[1:29] Karen O'Connor: So we're a new nonprofit. We were stood up a few months ago, but we are benefiting from years of homework that we've all done collectively. And we've stood up this nonprofit. It's all in the name. It's about a global fire capability that everyone can be part of and everyone can benefit from. So you can hear it in the name Earth Fire Alliance. We'd love everyone to be part of it. And what we're aiming for with this new nonprofit is to provide data at a fidelity that fire agencies have not had access to in the past and be able to give that capability globally in a way that it means that everyone gets access to that data equitably. We're not here to make money as a nonprofit. We're here to really make some change alongside the fire agencies. And with the changing climate, we know that fires in the landscape are increasing in frequency and intensity, and we want to get ahead of that and provide a new capability that they can all use.

[2:34] Kevin Sofen: A few things you said I really liked was data equity and new capability that, frankly, didn't exist. So within this dynamic, particularly when thinking about, you know, we say the word Earth, but we also think about the word space. How are we using space to create this new data capability to empower this data equality for the different stakeholders on Earth?

[2:57] Karen O'Connor: Yeah, I mean, we're at a point in time now where space is becoming much more affordable, and yet no one's really focused on using that opportunity to create change for the fire agencies. You know, historically, we've had access to things like MODIS, which were created for other means, really, but being used for fire monitoring, now's the time to create something that's specific for fire monitoring. And what we're looking to do is build a full constellation of satellites, 50 plus satellites that are tuned specifically to look for fire in the landscape and to give a fidelity of information that we haven't had before. So we're aiming to be able to have a pixel size of about 80 meter average. That means we can potentially see a hotspot fire as small as five meters in diameter. And with that many satellites, we can get an update every 20 minutes on average globally. So it means everyone will have access to real situational awareness on all of the fires in their region in a way they haven't had before.

[4:04] Kevin Sofen: And what does that allow you to do from a decision-making standpoint that it did not allow us to do before?

[4:10] Karen O'Connor: I think that fidelity of information and that revisit time means that you're not only just being told that there is a fire in the landscape somewhere, you're being told a lot about the fire. So we're hoping with the sensors that we have to be able to show the intensity of the fire in the fire line. We have sensor suite that's going to be able to see through cloud and smoke to be able to see fire at a level of detail that fire agencies can then have enough time to make decisions and make choices about how you activate resources. And the fact that it'll be on 365 days means it's not just useful for when the fires get really intense, but it's also useful for prescribed burning and risk reduction activities. Imagine when you start to collate all that data, how many lessons you can learn and how you can make improvements for the long term as well. So it's meant to be operational in real time, but also a wealth of knowledge to be able to make change and make improvements from.

[5:15] Kevin Sofen: And I know one of the many things we've talked about in the organization that connected us besides IAF today is XPRIZE. What are you doing with XPRIZE? What is XPRIZE and why is it something that's an important piece of this puzzle of leveraging Earth observation technology?

[5:29] Karen O'Connor: So I also work with XPRIZE in a separate role, and I see huge value in what XPRIZE is doing, particularly to activate the innovation community to make improvements on space-based fire detection is amazing. And what I can see potentially in the future that this satellite constellation that we're building will benefit greatly from all of the analytics improvements and the innovations that are developed by those teams in the XPRIZE. So we want to, in the Alliance name, we want to collaborate with everyone. And I'm particularly keen, once this XPRIZE stream is complete, to see what comes out of it, and we'll be ready and willing to collaborate with anyone who's developed some amazing things through that XPRIZE. I love it.

[6:17] Kevin Sofen: And just as you were talking and we're deep into this conversation, it made me think, how did you get involved with all this?

[6:24] Karen O'Connor: I fell into the fire space backwards, but I was told that once you're in, you find it hard to leap. And when we had the 2019, 2020 fires in Australia that everyone was well aware of across the world, Minderoo Foundation wanted to do something different, give some money towards making improvements in how we work with fire and flood. And so we were able to do that through the Minderoo Foundation, which is the biggest philanthropy in Australia, and we were able to do that through the making improvements in how we work with fire and flood. And so I was asked to come in and set the strategy for that program, and I led on a lot of the technical innovation programs that were part of that Minderoo Foundation portfolio. And so I've been working with particularly the Australian fire agencies for about four or five years now on different projects, including Spark Operational, which is the nationally consistent fire spread modeling capability, I had involvement with that through Minderoo, as well as multiple other projects like the Australian Fire Danger Rating System. I've worked with other agencies on ground cameras for early detection. And so having been involved in all of those projects and been around the community for so long, I was really passionate about finding a way to make a step change in detection and monitoring, and I saw that satellites were the key. And so even as I've left Minderoo, I've made it my mission to make those satellites happen, and I'm working with an amazing team over in the US to do it.

[8:00] Kevin Sofen: That's awesome. Kudos, I love the randomness of how that all came to be. But you talked about satellites in particular right there and the hardware dynamic of satellites. I talked to a couple of the XPRIZE teams in the past couple days, weeks, and one thing that just kind of caught me by surprise a little bit was the amount of private companies that are now making their own satellites, renting space on the SpaceXes of the world, and just throwing them out into low Earth orbit to be able to use that as their form of data collection.

[8:30] Karen O'Connor: Yeah, it's amazing the changes that have happened in the space industry in the last decade or so. I think if they tried to do that XPRIZE competition a decade ago, if we tried to form the Earth Fire Alliance a decade ago, I think it would have been cost prohibitive to do any of that. but we're at this sweet spot right now where we can, in an affordable way, use space in a really innovative fashion to help on the ground with fire intelligence. And I'm so excited to see what some of those teams come out with.

[9:06] Kevin Sofen: So you just said the word excited and it was in my mind thinking, I was like, what is Karen most excited about?

[9:10] Karen O'Connor: What am I most excited about? I think, like, I'm excited to be back at AFAC. It's been two years since I've been here. excited to see all of the change that's happened in that timeframe and see a lot of the collaborative work that's been happening amongst fire agencies across Australia and internationally in making improvements particularly in the wildfire space. And then outside of AFAC, I am just what excites me is the fact that we are now with this Earth Fire Alliance going from something that we spent two or three years doing our homework on, dotting our I's, crossing our T's, double checking our calculations. But now the most exciting thing is we're getting ready to launch these satellites in a few months. We've got our launch slots ready. We're going to be going up on... and we're going to have some amazing new data for fire agencies globally to be able to use.

[10:05] Kevin Sofen: That is epic. And I want more details and photos when that goes live. Oh, of course. And so two final questions here. One is the Institute of Fire Engineers. In your words, what is it and why is it an organization that is important in the Global Fire Service?

[10:20] Karen O'Connor: I think it's an organization that is such a brotherhood, such a collegiate organization that is working alongside and with agencies globally to be able to ensure that everyone who's going out there and put themselves at risk for the community is as safe as they possibly can, which I think is admirable and so important. And they're actively creating collaborative opportunities for new innovations and changes in how firefighters work both in wildfire and in the urban environment as well.

[10:58] Kevin Sofen: Well said. And final question is, I really enjoyed this throughout the time so far, but is it kind of a favorite quote or an inspirational words of wisdom that either you live by in your personal life or with an Earth Fire Alliance or any sort of final thoughts you could leave us with here today?

[11:14] Karen O'Connor: Oh, no, I think the quote that I attach myself most to with respect to Earth Fire Alliance that I've heard from multiple agencies, both in the US and here, is game-changer. Like, I think we need game-changers because climate is causing more frequent and more intense bushfires and wildfires, and we need to really make a step change. So game-changer is a term that I've heard a few times with respect to all of these innovations that are happening, and I think that's what we need to do. We need to change the game.

[11:46] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I mean, in some regards in life, small or low incremental changes and progress is good, but especially when thinking about the severity of some of the challenges we're facing, we need game changers. For sure. Well said, Karen. Well, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to hearing about the exciting updates in the next couple months.

[12:01] Karen O'Connor: Lovely to see you again.

[12:02] Kevin Sofen: You as well, take care. Thanks for listening to this episode recorded alongside the Institute of Fire Engineers during the AFAC Show. If you found value in the conversation or learned something new, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out, share your thoughts, and let's keep the discussion going on how we can shape the future of smart firefighting.