Newly installed wildfire cameras in Sonoma County helped firefighters quickly spot and suppress a fire burning east of Geyserville this week, county officials said.
After receiving 911 reports of smoke coming from near Pine Mountain, east of Cloverdale, around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, officials from Cal Fire say they checked a camera on Pine Mountain to see if they could spot the blaze but saw nothing.
Next, they checked a second camera on Geyser Peak and spotted the blaze on Pocket Ranch Road. Officials then dispatched fire personnel to the wildfire, and crews were able to contain the blaze — dubbed the Coyote Fire — at one acre.
In a time lapse recorded by the camera atop Geyser Peak, a helicopter can be seen flying over the blaze as personnel drop water on it. According to county officials, firefighters were able to use a nearby pond to douse the fire.
“This was really the perfect-case scenario for the use of these cameras to locate fires,” said Barry Dugan, senior programs specialist for the Sonoma County Water Agency.