LSU's AI engine prevents wildfires before they start
December 01, 2025
What’s the best way to fight a wildfire? Stop it before it starts.
This figure from DeepFire illustrates the risk of wildfires in various regions during a specific time frame. Calgary city proper exhibited a lower risk of wildfires. In contrast, smaller towns such as Cessford and the Acadia Valley, located in the northeast corner of the figure, faced a high threat of wildfires. Additionally, there were pockets around Medicine Hat in the Southeast that were also of concern.
Environmental Sciences Professor Supratik Mukhopadhyay’s artificial intelligence engine DeepFire can predict fires weeks before they occur with more than 90% accuracy. The technology’s performance made it one of 11 finalists for the XPrize’s Space-based Detection & Intelligence competition and one of six awarded the $50,000 Milestone Award for innovative data analytic capabilities.
“Wildfires, like the ones in Southern California and Hawaii, can have a disastrous impact on life, property, the environment and the economy. They pose an existential threat to humanity,” Mukhopadhyay said. “The DeepFire team developed the AI-based system by examining real-world scenarios, a painstaking process that took years.”
DeepFire applies fire-prediction, fire-detection, and fire-spread modeling systems to fire-prone regions, factoring in weather, analyzing visual data to detect smoke and cross-referencing its findings with a predictive map. The model incorporates DeepSat, a specialized toolbox designed to improve the accuracy of satellite imagery.
The system can predict a fire’s future behavior, including its danger level, how it will spread, and how fast that will happen. DeepFire allows fire managers to know when and where to deploy their resources ahead of time, so they can prevent disasters like the January 2025 wildfires in Southern California. Those fires killed more than 30 people and destroyed more than 18,000 homes and businesses. It took more than 7,500 firefighting and emergency workers from six states to control the fires.
LSU at AGU25
Join more than 250 LSU researchers at the premier Earth and space science conference and shape the future of our planet—the Annual American Geological Union (AGU) Meeting in New Orleans on December 15-19, 2025. Through visible, solutions-driven scholarship, LSU plays a leading role in shaping the conversations that matter at AGU.