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Steve:
Welcome back to the City of Redding podcast now that we have just finished the driest January February in recorded history, the state of California has called another drought season all but inevitable. This means fire season will be quickly arriving for us here in the north state and now is the perfect time to start prepping for wildfire season. Are you as already taking steps to make sure our community is as prepared as possible?

Katie:
So we recorded this podcast last year in the fall of Twenty Twenty One, and as we were preparing to put this out to the community, the first rains of the season started to fall. We really felt that the community needed a break from the worry of wildfire, and we paused on this topic knowing that it would come up again all too soon.

Steve:
In this episode, Sean Avery, program supervisor for Redding Electric Utility, explains the I.Q fire watch camera system that was installed in Redding and Twenty Twenty One. Last year they were an important piece of the wildfire mitigation plan for our local community and proved instrumental in catching several fires.

Katie:
Shawn will cover what those cameras are, where they're from, and why Redding should feel proud to be the first in the nation to utilize this technology.

Shawn Avery:
My name is Shawn Avery. I'm a program supervisor with writing an electric utility. I've actually been with the city of Redding for just over twenty-seven years in about two and a half years with Redding Electric Utility in my role, I work in the administration division, served as our public information officer, but also in communications, and I work on a number of special projects and project management, including one of our topics today, which is the IQ Fire Watch program. I'm very fortunate because as a city, we're very proactive with regards to the things that we can do working together in dealing with the impacts of vegetation fires on our community.

Katie:
And I guess today we're here really to talk about a couple of things that REU specifically spearheaded in the last year to help mitigate fires in our community, one of which is the I.Q fire watch cameras. Maybe you can just touch on those tell us what they are and why they're so special.

Shawn Avery:
Sure. So IQ fire Watch technology. These are really smart cameras, and they're optimized for early detection of wildfire smoke. So the sensor detects the smoke or a smoke like phenomena. It might be an industrial facility that we are able to determine where that smoke is coming from, but the sensor detects it and then information it's transmitted to what we would have as a command or control center. And then the operators evaluate that alert and in case of a fire, they notify, in our case Shascom, which is our joint dispatch agency here in Redding. They also work with the Redding Fire Department, and we receive alerts from a monitoring company that we have monitoring the cameras throughout the year. There's really three cameras. There's one on the west side by the Foothill Water Treatment Center. There's one here at the Redding electric utility billing location, and then there's one at our corporation yard off Viking way. Those were set up to have optimum coverage around the city of Redding. Each camera is designed to have approximately a 10-mile radius of being able to detect smoke early on when those plumes are first starting. The cameras have a monochrome detection, a near-infrared detection and then a multispectral detection, so it's more of a color that you can see within the camera. So it's specific for smoke in the atmosphere, and it was designed by a German company, IQ Fire Watch, and we are the first utility and the first, to my knowledge, the first organization within the United States to utilize it regularly. As we all know, our fire season seems to be growing. Right now, we have it being monitored from May 1st through the end of November by an outside monitoring company similar to what you would see from an alarm company. We also have it tied into what is our new emergency operation center.

Steve:
And Sean, how do you see this technology, this IQ fire watch technology changing how Redding handles wildfires in the future?

Shawn Avery:
Well, I think what it is is it's a tool that we can utilize in addition to what's already being done in the community. Awareness is going to be the number one mitigating factor when it comes to wildfire. People calling 9-1-1 when they see smoke plumes is critical. One thing to keep in mind with IQ Fire Watch is they do a full three hundred and sixty degree viewing and it takes every 15 seconds. They shift and they go to the next section. So it's always going to be important that we, as citizens would call in if we were to see a wildfire plume of smoke or any indicator. I think technology is instrumental in helping utilities, but also cities and counties and fire agencies to be able to not just prevent but to respond to in the most effective way possible fires that could impact our communities.

Katie:
And this technology, at least for the IQ fire watch cameras, if Redding really is the first in the nation to adopt these, how did REU source this technology, find this technology and why did they decide to invest in it?

Shawn Avery:
Ultimately, the IQ Fire Watch, although is new to the United States, it's not new to a large portion of the world. It's used in numerous countries throughout Europe. Germany has it throughout their forests for early detection of wildfire, and it does help them pinpoint where fires are actually occurring by latitude and longitude. The key is having those alerting companies or those monitoring companies be able to detect that fire early on and essentially dispatch fire personnel to that location. So it's been utilized throughout the world for quite some time, but it's really catching on here in the United States because we are so impacted, particularly in the western United States, by wildfires. And so we're looking for other tools. Our director was able to go to a Wildfire training conference, and this equipment was there so that he was able to study it, look at it, we met with those vendors, we met with others that have utilized the technology, and that's how we were able to bring it into our community to help us battle wildfires, essentially.

Steve:
And if you had to look where this technology will take us moving forward, I mean, will there be opportunities, would you think, to partner with other cities, other counties, other agencies to expand? I know you mentioned the three sensors covered. Each sensor allows for a 10 mile radius. Is the thought down the road that there's a potential opportunity to partner to expand that overall reach? Or is the immediate goal the Redding specific area?

Shawn Avery:
Well, I think that throughout California, we're all working together to mitigate, wildfires, right, I mean, wildfires don't really know boundaries. They don't know the county line versus the city line. They certainly don't know Redding versus Anderson. And so working together is always going to be a key component to fighting wildfires. I'm not the expert at wildfires. That would be Cal Fire that could really share because Cal Fire is integrated into all of our communities throughout the state. We do essentially work together and that is extremely important, and we're always trying to, as a utility, work with other utilities, but also because we're part of a bigger picture within the city. Working with all of our emergency responders is instrumental.

Katie:
And so when we get a lot of questions or feedback on social media with some citizens who are concerned about the use of cameras in our community, that it might be construed as Big Brother kind of spying on them, can you clear up what these IQ fire watch cameras are really all about? And if they are being used for any kind of public surveillance?

Shawn Avery:
IQ fire watch cameras are very specific. They're designed to detect smoke in the atmosphere. They don't have the ability to - We can't control the zoom in factor. The cameras are always in motion and their sole purpose is the detection of smoke. We don't have the ability to implement them in any other way in our community. That's what they're designed specifically to do. The bottom line is that the design of the IQ Fire Watch is so specific in the technology. Utilized for smoke detection is important in our community, but it's something that is the sole focal point of the IQ fire watch. It's incapable of anything else.

Steve:
And Shawn, I know that IQ fire watch technology is relatively new, as you mentioned. Has it been instrumental in identifying fires in and around the area?

Shawn Avery:
Yes, that's a great question. The IQ Fire Watch program has identified a number of fires throughout our community, as we've seen now. Citizens are calling them in as fast or faster in many cases, which is what we'd like to see. We want as soon as the fire is noted, people calling 9-1-1, that's going to be instrumental, but it also works during the night. And that's one of the elements that we may not all be aware of. But if a fire starts out at two o'clock in the morning, people may not visually see that fire until it has grown. Key for us is is making sure that the cameras are doing their job that is getting us as early notification as possible and notifying the dispatch center. It does not take the place of people calling in 911, though. I want to emphasize that that is extremely important that all of us being aware of wildfire. I think we're all very sensitive to it and we absolutely know the impacts of it. So the citizens calling it in is critical.

Steve:
And Shawn, I'm curious, too, with the technology itself, in addition to being used as early detection, does the technology also allow for those fire services or folks who are actively fighting, say, a larger fire in the area to use technology to see wind directions and see how the fire is spreading from that aerial view and really kind of strategically plan on fire abatement strategy around that? Or is it really just for that early notification? And then the fire services would kind of plan accordingly as they do?

Shawn Avery:
The IQ Fire Watch is designed for the specific purpose of early detection of that smoke. It doesn't provide other elements of a fire. We, well the fire department I can't speak for them because they're the experts, but they rely on a number of tools out in the field and things that they have available to them to determine the best way to fight those fires as they're in the field. I will say, though, that the IQ fire watch, we have the emergency operation center has it - It stays up within the emergency operation center Twenty four seven and we're installing another license for it so that it's at our battalion chief's office, at our City Hall facility, as well as our third place, which is the monitoring company that is the essentially the alarm company that notifies Shascom. So there's always eyes there that have the ability to see those alerts as they come in.

Katie:
So just to clarify, there is somebody watching this camera stream Twenty four seven?

Shawn Avery:
Yes, we we have a contract outside vendor that monitors it. Twenty four seven, much like an alarm company, would be for a burglar alarm this alarm company immediately when they spot the fires, the system alerts on a fire. And then they have the ability to zoom in on the plume of smoke, and there's a small video clip that would come with that and they can view to determine if that is indeed a fire if it's industrial. Sometimes it will pick up on large dust storms, you know, a vehicle that has stirred up a lot of particles into the air, so they're able to to view it. And then what they do is they mark it at the base of that fire and that will give them the latitude and longitude. And for us, we want the nearest cross streets within the city of Redding. But when you're out in the county area where it's all vegetation, the latitude and longitude is an important element for other agencies. And so once that's noted by the the alarm company, then they will contact Shascom directly with the location that they've noted of the fire.

Steve:
So Sean, really, at the end of the day, the IQ watch technology is is one piece in this larger puzzle of things that are used actively doing as part of this wildfire mitigation plan to keep the community safe and to really work with local agencies to ensure that we're on top of it when, if and when wildfires begin. Is that right?

Shawn Avery:
Yeah, that's one hundred percent correct. Really, when you look at the four key elements of our wildfire mitigation plan, technology is one of those for prevention and improved response by supporting a fire in our parks for vegetation management and responding to fires. Our emergency operations, which is built after incident command structure from FEMA for response to emergencies, is another element and our last one is our 10 year capital plan to ensure that we're always continuing the improvements on our electric infrastructure here in the community and keeping it safe from wildfires is right at the top of that list

Katie:
And going back to the EOC, the Emergency Operation Center. I'm assuming that the need for that really was shown during the Carr Fire, the need for those technological pieces to kind of put everybody together and on the same page in the midst of an emergency, you really did need those pieces of technology to speak to each other. Is that where this really came from?

Shawn Avery:
I think that's a huge portion of it. I don't think it's the sole reason for it. The snowmageddon that we all went through six months later also showed that need for that centralized location so that we could tie technology and leadership together so that they can communicate. And we're allocating our resources efficiently throughout the community. So as a team, we went when I say we, a number of staff members from the city of redding, including from the utility and fire and our I.T. department, we went and visited a number of emergency operation centers in the North State, YOLO County, SAC County callouts to really determine what would be the needs for our community because they're all a little bit different. But really, it was to model after what emergency operation centers, how they can best provide the services to the community. So we came back from that, that that field trip one afternoon and we developed that plan to implement our emergency operation center.

Steve:
It's kind of if community members want to learn more about our use wildfire mitigation plan or have questions about IQ Fire Watch specifically, what's the what's the best place for them to go or who to contact to do that?

Shawn Avery:
So our website, we have the plan up on our website with all of the supporting different elements of the wildfire mitigation plan, including our monitoring and auditing of that report. So we have to audit wildfire mitigation plan every year and you can see exactly what was done this past year, the progress that was made. I know everybody likes the goats, but but there's so many different elements that have been part of the wildfire mitigation plan. And trust me, I like the goats too. I think they're a great tool and they're just one small part of that. In fact, our parks division is a great example. They treat the power poles and surrounding areas with fire retardant during the fire season for those poles that are within high fire threat areas. So they target those and we identify them and target them throughout the fire season just as another way to mitigate damage that could be caused. But you can go into our website and please feel free. cityofredding.org and look at REU's wildfire mitigation plan and you can see the scope of the plan and then everything that was done because we're we've had a full year and a half of the plan, what the strategies were, the programs and then where we are timeline wise on implementing all of the different technology pieces. We've come a long way over this past year and I look forward to this next year as well.

Katie:
Shawn, if you had any last words that you'd like to share with the community or anything else you'd like to add. Feel free.

Shawn Avery:
The benefit of public power is, is that we all work together in the community as customers. We work side by side. We live in our community. We serve this community and we have specific needs here. Wildfire is obviously one of those areas of concern for all of us. So working together in the community to prevent that is so important, and it's going to continue to remain that way for years to come. But I think we've made great strides working together internally within the city, meaning departments partnering together, but also working with the citizens to make sure that we have a safe community for generations to come. None of us want to go through an event like we did in Twenty Eighteen ever again. These are tools that we still need. All of us working together to prevent wildfire from impacting us.

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