A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. “They’re trained very specifically to detect smoke or not, and we train them with images of smoke and images of not smoke,” CEO Sonia Kastner said. The cameras help detect fires quicker and get teams on the ground faster, shaving up to two hours off response times. German startup OroraTech analyzes satellite images with artificial intelligence. "There are algorithms on the satellite, very efficient ones to detect fires even faster," CEO Thomas Gruebler said.

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Persons: Phillip SeLegue, SeLegue, It's, “ They’re, Sonia Kastner, ” Kastner, ”, Larry Bekkedahl, Bekkedahl, “, ” Bekkedahl, Juan Lavista Ferres, Ferres, “ It’s, OroraTech, Thomas Gruebler, Gruebler, Barbara Ortutay Organizations: Firefighters, Microsoft, California Department of Forestry, Portland General Electric, PGE, AP Technology Locations: Maui, San Diego, Francisco, Oregon, Canada, Munich, Chile, Alberta, San Francisco