Artificial intelligence has transformed AI wildfire detection by analysing images for the presence of smoke captured by fire detection cameras across large landscapes. At Sandy Fire Tower, this transition allowed monitoring to continue even after the historic structure became unsafe for human access, marking a shift from human observation to continuous early wildfire detection supported by artificial intelligence.
The next shift did not arrive with noise or spectacle. It arrived through software.
Instead of waiting for a person to notice smoke, cameras began capturing images continuously across the landscape. These images were then analysed by artificial intelligence systems trained to recognise the early signs of wildfire smoke.
Every image. Every sweep of the camera. Every hour of the day.
Fire detection stopped being intermittent and became continuous.
For the first time, the work of watching the horizon could be supported by systems that analyse large volumes of imagery while people focus on confirmation and response.
How does AI wildfire detection work?
Artificial intelligence models are trained to recognise how smoke behaves in the real world. Not as a static image, but as a pattern that evolves over time. Early smoke rises before flame becomes visible. It drifts, spreads, thins, thickens, and changes shape. It behaves differently from cloud, fog, dust, steam, or glare.
Images captured by fire detection cameras are analysed continuously by AI systems that look for these smoke patterns. When a potential detection appears, the system flags the location and presents the event for human verification.
Instead of relying solely on chance observation by a human operator, the system can analyse large numbers of images and highlight possible smoke activity as it develops.
Detection no longer depends on someone happening to look in the right direction at the right moment. It becomes a continuous analytical process.
Equally important, the role of people changes again.
Humans are no longer expected to discover fires. They verify them. Potential detections are flagged automatically, mapped in real time, and presented for confirmation. This reduces fatigue, improves consistency, and shortens the time between ignition and awareness.
What happens after AI detects possible wildfire smoke?
When an AI wildfire detection system identifies a possible smoke pattern, the event is flagged automatically and mapped to its geographic location. Operators receive an alert and immediately access the camera view to verify whether the detection represents a real fire.
Once verified, the information can be shared with land managers, fire services, or response teams so that action can begin as early as possible.
Early awareness often determines whether a small ignition becomes a controllable incident or develops into a large landscape fire.
For Sandy Fire Tower No. 5, the transition to AI wildfire detection extended the life of its purpose even as the structure itself began to fail.
Why was Sandy Fire Tower no longer safe to climb?
By 2025, the tower was no longer safe to climb. The stairs were gone. Timber decay was visible throughout the structure. Fungus had taken hold. What had once been engineered for daily ascent could no longer support human weight without unacceptable risk.
Continuing to climb a deteriorating timber structure would expose workers to unnecessary safety risks. In modern wildfire management, protection extends beyond the landscape. It includes the safety of personnel and contractors.
The final physical climb of Sandy occurred in 2023, when Julian Thaller accessed the tower and roof to undertake maintenance on the existing Pelco camera. It marked the last time the structure was safely climbed.
When the Pelco camera was later struck by lightning, replacement could no longer follow the traditional approach. By that time, climbing the tower was no longer permitted.
Instead, in 2025, the damaged Pelco camera was removed and replaced with a modern camera from Axis Communications using a crane. The work was carried out from a suspended cage alongside the structure, allowing technicians to install the new equipment without physically accessing the tower.
The replacement also reflected a broader shift in wildfire monitoring, where AI wildfire detection supports continuous landscape observation without relying on routine human lookout from the tower itself.
Importantly, detection coverage remained uninterrupted throughout the transition. Monitoring continued. There was no operational gap.
By 2026, Sandy was no longer a place for human access. It had entered its final operational chapter.
Yet the forest did not lose its watcher.
Today, Sandy forms part of an AI enabled early wildfire detection network operated and maintained by exci for HQPlantations. The tower still overlooks the land it was built to protect, but the personal risk once carried by individual fire watchers has been removed.
The structure continues to decay. Timber breaks down. Fungus reclaims the wood. The forest slowly takes back what was borrowed decades ago.
This is not failure. It is completion.
For generations, Sandy’s purpose was to give people a place to watch the horizon. Today that responsibility continues in a different form. Cameras capture the landscape. Artificial intelligence analyses the images. Human operators confirm and respond.
The tower itself may fade, but the responsibility it carried does not.
Wildfire detection no longer depends on people climbing wooden structures, or even on the towers themselves. It continues through AI wildfire detection, human verification, and coordinated response across the landscape.
In the final chapter of this series, we reflect on what Sandy teaches us about modern wildfire detection, infrastructure responsibility, and the meaning of early warning today.
by Gabrielle Tylor
exci – Early AI Wildfire & Bushfire Detection
6 March 2026