HOTzone

Millions of acres burn annually in wildfires across the globe. As population grows and people migrates to all lands, as climate change challenges the environment, and as wildfires grow in intensity and frequency, every second counts.

Wildfires pose threats to all life forms and properties. Climate change and population growth have combined to put people and infrastructure at high risk of wildfire. The 2019 Kincade Fire in California’s Sonoma County burned an area twice the size of San Francisco, and the November 2018 Camp Fire near Sacramento, California caused 85 fatalities and an estimated $16.5 billion in damage.

There isn’t any known application catered for general public use, to allow users to check for predicted wildfire condition near their location of interest. The public usually has to wait for public entity or government to inform them of the wildfire condition. HOTzone is an application created in attempt to bridge this gap. It combines historical fire data, weather data, machine learning, and a user-friendly web interface to predict the probability of active wildfire spread near a user-provided location, to provide an early warning.