Overwatch Imaging sensors provide important intel for close-to-home wildfires

Columbia Gorge News article: August 28, 2024

By Nathan Wilson, Columbia Gorge News

By Nathan Wilson, Columbia Gorge News

(Edited, original article published August 28, 2024 linked HERE)

HOOD RIVER — “Every time I’m on a flight, I’m the kind of guy who’s just looking out the window the whole time,” said Greg Davis, the founder and CEO of Overwatch Imaging. “That bird’s eye view is something special that resonates with me.”

Since 2016, Davis and his team (currently about 35) people have captured stunningly detailed, multispectral imagery from heights much higher than most birds can fly — sometimes as high as 30,000 feet or more. With its technology onboard planes from France to Australia, Overwatch Imaging plays a global role in national security, search and rescue missions and informing responses to wildfires, all based out of their Hood River waterfront headquarters.

Overwatch Imaging TK-8 Smart Sensor is widely used across the US and globally for aerial intelligence missions. The sensor is equipped with imagers in Visible/RGB, NIR, SWIR, MWIR and LWIR spectral bands.

In simple terms, Overwatch Imaging builds sensors, or fancy cameras, that look for small things from far away, and at a rapid pace. What sets the company apart, however, lies inside those sensors: By leveraging artificial intelligence and edge computing, Overwatch’s sensors operate autonomously, moving back and forth beneath a wide variety of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, stitching together thousands of images and providing feedback in real-time without human input.

Such capabilities have all but revolutionized wildfire mapping.

“The old way largely consisted of people in aircraft looking out the window with the naked eye,” Davis explained, “and hand drawing lines on a map or calling things out on radio to people on the ground.”

Today, federal and state agencies, like the United States Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), have contracts with Overwatch and routinely fly aircraft with their technology over fires across the fire-prone western region. In just one night, a single plane can collect data on dozens of different wildfires spread across hundreds of miles, and then transmit that data to the appropriate incident command teams before formulating their response plans at dawn every morning.

Locally this fire season, Overwatch systems provided (or still provide) aerial intelligence of the Microwave Tower and Whiskey Creek fires near Hood River and Mosier and the Williams Mine Fire on the south side of Mt. Adams.

When the Park fire blew up, the fourth largest in California’s history, CAL FIRE ran Overwatch Imaging sensors 24 hours a day for three weeks straight, generating updated maps of the fire’s growth every 30 minutes. Along with an extensive history of fire suppression, climate change has caused the number of acres burned, the length of the fire season and the severity of wildfires to increase, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

“As we look at the explosive growth of wildfires over the past decade or two, it’s clear to us that better data can lead to better outcomes,” said Davis.

Overwatch’s sensors are equipped with sensors that image in several different spectral bands, or wavelengths of light, that communicate different information. The visible band offers a high resolution snapshot of a wildfire like a person would see with their naked eye. Thermal, or infrared, spectral bands image radiant and reflective heat and reveal information we can't see with our eyes. Thermal imaging reveals where fires are burning the hottest, through smoke, fog and some clouds, and at night, and can even reveal whether plants are still photosynthesizing, which correlates to plant health and potential fire severity.

With the help of onboard software, Overwatch sensors can also extrapolate exact fire perimeters that are rapidly-transmittable to agencies and crews on the ground. By assisting with immediate fire response, Overwatch is in the business of protecting public safety and helping keep responders out of harms way.

“There are a lot of technology jobs available for people in general, but I think the people who have chosen to work here really feel connected to making a big impact with their work,” Davis said about the Overwatch team.

More information: Overwatch Imaging Wildfire Intelligence