Terrain Fire Risk Analyzer wins Rep. Jared Huffman’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in California’s Second District

When asked what inspired the creation of Terrain Fire Risk Analyzer, the student said, “California has been my home since the age of 3. All my memories of growing up are in the California Bay Area, a very beautiful and scenic place. Napa and Sonoma are my favorite places. The landscape and terrain are beautiful year round, with rolling green hills and lush vegetation in spring , to the golden landscape in fall. We always drove around these areas and spent many lovely outings with family and friends enjoying the wineries and fruit picking in fall. I still have vivid memories of the deadly fires that happened in 2016 when I was in elementary school. It was unreal: the air quality was dangerously bad, there was a lot of smoke everywhere, and skies were bright orange or red, colors I had never seen before. Everyone was talking about the deadly fires, which were not very far from us. 

This really hit me, and the following year we had another round of fire all over California, affecting our communities and creating havoc in everyone’s daily lives. We had to evacuate on short notice, grabbing what we could, but fortunately we could return back by evening. But I was deeply affected thinking of everyone who was facing the fire on ground zero: brave firefighters and first responders. I have been thinking since then of ways to prevent or forecast a possibility of fire. As I got more interested in programming and computers, the thought was still in my mind. When I learned about machine learning, I saw this technology as the perfect way to build on my thoughts and make the app into reality. I consider this app as a starting point and I am confident that I can refine and create an enhanced version of this app which I hope will one day be extremely helpful and available for everyone to download and analyze the fire risk around them.”