“It really gives us a little bit of a leg up in terms of getting a rapid response,” Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine says. “We're able to view the cameras from really anywhere, see if it's a real fire or, potentially, what size fire it is. We can get air resources called immediately before we get firefighters there.”
Early actions like calling in air resources right away and being able to pinpoint where a blaze originates help the department prevent destruction from wildfires that may otherwise get out of control, he adds.
Aspen Fire was the first fire department in the state to purchase and use AI wildfire detection cameras, spurred by a local school losing insurance coverage because of wildfire risks; Balentine heard of a similar experience from a homeowner's association in the area.
The fire chief thought purchasing AI cameras could help people regain coverage — or, at least, have a higher chance to stay protected without it — but the company that provided the technology, Pano AI, was a startup at the time. Balentine was hesitant to use public money for an untested product, but the department found a private benefactor who funded the first year of camera use.
In less than four years, the donation has already paid dividends, Balentine says.
“Sometimes technology is something that's not really easily embraced by the fire industry, or it hasn’t been in the past,” he says. “That's slowly changing and now rapidly changing. I’m a firm believer that if we're going to get a handle on any of this stuff that is going on with climate change — or whatever you want to call it — we've got to be able to embrace technology to make our job faster, safer, easier.”
The cameras are mounted on communication towers and cover a ten-mile radius, providing an exact latitude and longitude of a fire — though Balentine says that their range can extend further, depending on topography. For example, Aspen Fire’s cameras were able to detect a fire that started near Twin Lakes last summer and one in Crested Butte the year before that, just not with the exact latitude and longitude. Having two cameras with overlapping range helps with accuracy, too, Balentine notes.
The cameras work by flagging anything that appears to be smoke. From there, humans confirm that what the cameras are picking up is actually smoke and then send a notification to the fire department.
Nearby fire departments in Basalt and Carbondale have added the cameras since Aspen Fire adopted the technology, as have some energy companies in the area, Balentine says. There are now nine AI detection cameras in the Aspen Valley, and the departments share information.
“When we first started talking about these cameras...my hope was that it could be something not just high-end resort districts that may have funds could afford," Balentine says. "I wanted to make sure it was going to be able to get out to less fortunate fire departments and counties around the state. …This is very close to my heart, and I really hope other fire departments can use this technology.”
A helicopter and tanker plane try to fight back the Deer Creek Canyon fire in Colorado in 2024.
Evan Semón Photography
Colorado Lawmakers Considering AI Fire Camera Funds
A bill in the Colorado Legislature seeks to provide funding for wildfire detection across the state. 
A helicopter and tanker plane try to fight back the Deer Creek Canyon fire in Colorado in 2024.
Evan Semón Photography
Sponsored by Senator Lindsey Daugherty and Representatives Ron Weinberg and Kyle Brown, Senate Bill 25-011 directs the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control to establish agreements with private partners to place more AI-enabled smoke detection cameras throughout the state.
To do so, the proposed legislation would create a new Front Line Innovation and Response Efficiency cash fund (FIRE fund), which would receive $1 million in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, $2 million in the 2026-2027 fiscal year and $3 million in the 2027-2028 fiscal year.
“Unfortunately, wildfires aren't something that only happens in the summer,” says Daugherty, who grew up in Loveland and whose parents still live there. “I've seen it shift to where we're having wildfires all year round. …It's not getting better. It is, in fact, getting worse, so we need to make sure that we have as many tools in the toolbox to help folks so that they don't lose everything.”
Daugherty, who represents parts of Adams and Jefferson counties, cites recent fires that caused destruction in Los Angeles and the Marshall fire that wreaked havoc in Boulder County in 2021 as examples of previously unthinkable winter fire events.
“People are starting to realize that no one is really immune to wildfires, because you used to think there's no way entire subdivisions would burn, and then we had the Marshall fire,” Daugherty says. “This isn't a problem that's going to get better. It's one that we need to adapt to.”
Balentine, who first started fighting fires in 1989, notes that fires are hotter, bigger and fiercer now.
“It used to be, we were pretty much guaranteed a number of months a year that there wasn't a fire,” he says. But now, "we can't let our guard down at any time.”
Daugherty says she has found about forty AI smoke-detection cameras in use in Colorado. After working with firefighters to craft the bill, she says most departments are eager to have more tools to catch fires faster.
According to Daugherty, the AI cameras used by Aspen Fire automatically pixelate homes and other private areas; because the AI is designed to detect smoke, the cameras are mostly looking in the air.
The Attorney General’s office weighed in and deemed the cameras safe for privacy rights, she says. However, the Colorado Association of Realtors (CAR) is pushing for amendments to the bill to ensure those privacy rights are protected in the law.
"We understand the intent, and we want to do everything we can to protect our communities against wildfire," says Brian Tanner, vice president of public policy for CAR. "At the same time, when you have cameras, how are those property owners — that could have cameras on their property or even on their homes — how are they being protected?"
CAR says that requirements to pixelate pictures of homes should be included in state law rather than trusting internal company policies of contractors with which the state partners. The group is also asking that people whose homes could be in view of cameras be alerted, and that a list of who can, and has, looked at the images produced by the cameras is publicly available.
Given that cameras are already being used in the state, those amendments are all the more important, Tanner says.
“I wouldn't put my name on something if I had those concerns,” Daugherty says, citing a bill she sponsored last year to protect Coloradans’ biometric data as an example of her commitment to privacy protection. “With AI, we need to know what it's being used for and where it's going, but we also need to adapt and use the technology to our betterment. That's what this does.”
Bill sponsors and CAR are discussing possible amendments, according to Tanner.
Weinberg, who serves on the Artificial Intelligence Impact Task Force designed to examine AI as an emerging field, says experts on the topic have recommended AI as way to combat wildfires. After seeing the damage of the Marshall fire firsthand, the state rep out of Larimer County says lawmakers would be "foolish" to ignore that recommendation.
Weinberg sponsored another bill that would fund further research into AI technology to fight wildfires. Senate Bill 25-022 would have appropriated $7.6 million to the Division of Fire Prevention and Control to subsidize a Lockheed Martin pilot program that examines AI uses for wildfire prevention. However, the bill was postponed indefinitely by the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee on January 29.
Boulder County resident Kerry Matre said that she saw a thirty-foot wall of flames coming toward her house in Stone Canyon when she evacuated on July 30, 2024.
Courtesy of Kerry Matre
According to Daugherty, the state has allocated $70 million from the TABOR reserve since 2018 for fire response efforts, so finding another means of funding is part of the goal. “Early detection is so incredibly important, because right now we're relying on hikers or people driving by, or people seeing smoke off in a distance,” she says. “We’re hoping that by catching it early, we can put it out quicker and limit the people who are going to be affected by wildfires.”
Balentine says Aspen Fire helped train Pano’s AI formula to understand Colorado's landscape so that future departments would have a leg up if they used the same company. For example, the cameras first detected whirlwinds of lake and stream water as fire smoke, but the system has since learned to ignore those false positives. Even leaves changing colors in the fall freaked the cameras out at first, he adds. After a few years of refinement, however, Aspen Fire has an accurate feel of what's going on after camera notifications.
Fire departments don’t have enough resources to tame every fire right when it starts, Balentine notes, but the cameras help him allocate more effectively. If there’s a blip that looks small, the department can send one truck to check things out without manning entire crews. On the flip side, if someone reports smoke and Aspen Fire sends one truck to investigate without looking at the cameras, the blaze could be out of control before the scout truck arrives. Aspen Fire can also monitor controlled burns with the cameras, freeing up more firefighters for unexpected calls.
Balentine is speaking with insurance agencies regularly, he says, and believes that as the technology becomes more proven and widespread, companies will consider the presence of AI cameras as a factor in property insurance policies.
“Getting information in the early stages, quite frankly, is the only hope we have of beating this beast,” he says. “We have proven it does work.”
Balentine hopes to attend SB 011's first hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, February 5, in the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee.
