A year after California's largest wildfire in modern history burned more than 1,200 square miles in the Lake Tahoe area, officials are looking to a new tool to help them plan for the future.
The Tahoe Fund and Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation announced Tuesday that they're deploying Vibrant Planet's software, called Land Tender, across the area's 1.5 million acres, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The tool, which will be the largest deployment to date of its kind in the US, uses artificial intelligence and high-resolution cameras to provide real-time information on forest health, as well as the risk of wildfires.
"Traditional solutions are inadequate with the rate of change and severe impacts we're seeing in this new age of 'megafire,'" Amy Berry, CEO of the Tahoe Fund, says in a press release.
"Land Tender's software allows us to speed up the timeline of critical community protection and forest health, while at the same time giving us more information than ever before to do what's best for the environment."
Land Tender will allow officials to create treatment plans based on specific outcomes, such as reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire, protecting water quality, or protecting recreational opportunities, Vibrant Planet CEO Allison Caldwell says in the press release.
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