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New AI cameras stop runaway bush fires in Tasmania

2 February 2026

At 8.40am on Dec 12, 2025, in the midst of Australia’s bush fire season, a blaze erupted in Golden Valley, a remote woodland region of the island state of Tasmania. Typically, such a fire in a sparsely populated area might not be detected until hours later and, by then, would have become uncontrollable. But this fire was detected by a new artificial intelligence-powered camera on a tower 19km away.

The camera, which rotates 360 degrees every minute and takes photos every five seconds, spotted a plume of smoke and alerted Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT), a state-owned forest management and timber production company that is one of the state’s three firefighting agencies.

A fire truck that happened to be nearby was sent to dump water on it. Two helicopters and two firefighting crews were later deployed. By 11am, the fire was out, according to Dr Shaun Suitor, strategy manager at STT.

“This was in dense bush land,” Dr Suitor told The Sunday Times. “Without the camera, this fire would not have been seen for hours, and it would not have been controllable.”

Source: The Straits Times

Image credit: Indicium Dynamics

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