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UC San Diego professor develops tool to help crews fight wildfires

Wildfires ravage Northern California
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LA JOLLA, Calif. (KGTV) -- A UC San Diego professor has developed a new way to help firefighters fight wildfires.

Dr. Ilkay Altintas, the Chief Data Science Officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, has been working on this technology for almost 10 years. The program predicts and maps out where fires will occur every 30 minutes for six hours.

Crews have already used this real-time technology to battle the fires around Southern California, including the Palisades Fire that erupted in the Los Angeles area on Monday.

Altintas and her team introduced the online tool to the Del Mar City Council Monday, showing the council how the program can help save lives.