OUR MISSION
Redefining
Situational Awareness
At ALERTWest, our mission is clear: to deploy a large-scale, interoperable, collaborative, situational awareness platform with AI wildfire detection to help prevent the loss of life, property, and environmental damage. We achieve this by creating a network of cameras and a software solution for use by first responders, emergency management personnel, infrastructure organizations, other organizations, and the public. We collaborate with universities to foster local engagement and program support within their respective states or territories. These partnerships also enable cutting-edge research on wildfires and other hazards.
THE ALERT ECOSYSTEM
ALERTWest was born out of the private and public partnership between Digital Path (our parent company) and UC San Diego, which built the ALERTCalifornia platform. ALERTWest was then created to bring the same private and public partnership model of collaboration throughout the United States and the world.
ALERTCalifornia
Based at the University of California San Diego, ALERTCalifornia is a collaborative public safety program that provides the tools to prepare for, respond to, and recover from wildfires and other natural hazards.
ALERTCalifornia is the third generation of UC San Diego’s High Performance Research & Education Network (HPWREN), and was built on the shoulders of more than 20 years of university research. Though this first-generation network was originally used for geologic monitoring, it quickly became apparent that the network provided useful tools to combat wildfires. In the early 2000s, HPWREN helped firefighters and emergency managers quickly communicate and coordinate efforts to combat and monitor major wildfires in San Diego County.
Over the next decade, emergency managers incorporated HPWREN’s publicly available cameras and wireless network into their response strategies. The infrastructure entered a period of rapid growth as the technology continued to improve. HPWREN eventually expanded into the ALERTWildfire consortium of universities in Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Today, ALERTCalifornia is a state-focused program that manages more than 1,060 monitoring cameras and sensor arrays across California. ALERTCalifornia’s scientists are focused on natural hazard monitoring and research efforts. As a university-based program ALERTCalifornia is positioned to work with local, regional, state and federal government levels, utilities, and research institutions to meet state-specific needs and provide the data required to fill knowledge gaps and inform management decisions.
ALERTCalifornia prioritizes collaboration. Named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023, ALERTCalifornia, CAL FIRE and industry partner DigitalPath collaboratively launched a novel fire detection AI tool that ushers in a new era of technology in wildfire prevention, detection, and response.
DigitalPath
DigitalPath was started in 2005 as a wireless internet provider in Northern California. Digital Path's mission was to make a difference in underserved markets by bringing high-speed internet to rural areas.
In early 2019, shortly after the Camp Fire, DigitalPath partnered with the ALERTWildfire consortium to install and maintain cameras and backhaul throughout Northern California. While working on the project, DigitalPath saw a need for a single sign-on platform to control the cameras within the network. Based on a platform that they had already developed for weather monitoring, DigitalPath expanded the platform to incorporate cameras.
In September of 2022, the ALERTCalifornia network was established with DigitalPath's Situational Awareness Platform to control and view the cameras. Shortly after the launch of the platform, DigitalPath started an initiative to train an AI wildfire detection model based on user camera movements to detect wildfires. By July of 2023, DigitalPath launched an AI Wildfire Detection model within the situational awareness platform.
Due to the success of the platform and the AI wildfire detection model that was incorporated, DigitalPath chose to start a subsidiary named ALERTWest to separate the wireless internet provider company and the situational awareness platform.
ALERTWest
ALERTWest was launched in 2023, following the overwhelming success of the CAL FIRE, DigitalPath, and UC San Diego partnership. ALERTWest was created as a private company to develop the same university model of private and public partnerships that has proven extremely successful to the entire United States and the world.
ALERTWest's Situational Awareness Platform with AI Wildfire Detection is revolutionizing the way everyone responds to wildfires.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Since the launch of ALERTCalifornia and the expansion of the ALERTWest platform, the system has received many awards and recognition. Explore our success below: