Lakeview District Expands Fire Detection Network

LAKEVIEW, Ore. - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Lakeview District and its partners at the Oregon Hazards Lab at the University of Oregon have installed another new fire detection camera in Southeastern Oregon. The Green Mountain camera is part of a 1,000-plus-camera network hosted on the ALERTWest platform. In Oregon, there are now 16 wildfire detection cameras sponsored by the BLM that feed into the ALERTWest platform. If conditions allow, another wildfire detection camera will be installed on Acty Mountain, 60 miles east of Lakeview, this summer.

In addition to lookouts and aviation assets used in fire reporting, the camera system helps fire managers and responders to detect, confirm, and rapidly respond to wildfires. Fire managers can also use this technology to monitor smoke columns, weather conditions, and fire behavior changes. Natural resource managers and the public are also able to see what conditions are in these locations, as the platform is public-facing. The Green Mountain Fire Lookout will continue to be staffed from June through October.

"These new camera systems will allow us to detect wildfires quickly, and they will also allow fire managers to get information on fire behavior earlier and make more timely critical decisions on what resources they send to the fire," said Lakeview District Manager Todd Forbes.

Spotting fires via camera feeds occurs through automated detections that are reviewed by an operations center that confirms, and reports smoke when they occur during the day. At night, the cameras shift into near-infrared, and the automatic detection monitors for new hot spots on the landscape.

With just a few clicks on alertwest.org, users can access camera time-lapse and panoramic views. Credentialed users have the power to control the cameras, zooming, rotating 360 degrees, tilting, and providing angles from multiple directions. This interactive feature allows officials to monitor a vast landscape in real time and playback the feed later for a more detailed analysis, empowering them with comprehensive data for decision-making.