The 2024 fire season in Oregon was, in the words of fire management officer David LaChapelle of the Bureau of Land Management, “very busy.” Wildland grasses grew thick thanks to a wet spring, then dried out and became wildfire fuel when summer temperatures rose quickly and intensely. The conditions contributed to a record-breaking wildfire season for Oregon, with fires burning more than 1.9 million acres in the state through October, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.

But firefighters and other emergency personnel have a new tool to spot and track wildfires in the West: hundreds of mountaintop cameras that provide high-speed wildfire detection, courtesy of the Oregon Hazards Lab, or OHAZ. The research lab within the University of Oregon Department of Earth Sciences uses science, technology and community engagement to understand, detect and mitigate wildfires and other hazards within the Pacific Northwest.

In a new OHAZ video from University Communications, hazards lab director Doug Toomey and fire officials explain the role of the camera network in early detection and management of wildfires. 

“We can put in mountaintop zoom cameras so that we can have eyes on the landscape 24-7 throughout the year,” Toomey says in the video. “We want to build the best real-time monitoring platform in the world. And I think we’re on our way to do that.”