Clearer wildfire planning for stronger, more connected communities.
BurnLens turns frequently updated satellite imagery and authoritative fire information into planning-ready materials that help local partners screen evacuation access, understand exposure, and coordinate with more confidence.
Why it matters
Built for the gap between wildfire data and usable local action.
Public agencies and resilience partners can already access imagery, hazard layers, and fire information. What is often missing is a package that makes those inputs easier to interpret, circulate, and use in real planning conversations.
BurnLens is designed to make wildfire context more legible across people, not just across software. The goal is to help local teams align around a map, a memo, and a bounded understanding of what the product can and cannot support.
See the whole geography
Access routes, parcels, facilities, and fire context appear together instead of across disconnected layers and tabs.
Brief with confidence
The output is designed to move into meetings and planning discussions with provenance and caveats attached.
Support real coordination
County, city, and resilience partners get something they can discuss together without bespoke technical translation.
Stay responsibly bounded
Every package reinforces fit-for-use limits and defers to authoritative sources where they govern.
How it works
A calmer workflow for turning current fire context into something usable.
Frame the geography
Start with one community-and-corridor area where wildfire relevance, access constraints, and planning value are easy to see.
Layer current context
Combine current satellite imagery, authoritative fire information, and local planning overlays into one bounded screening stack.
Review access and exposure
Look at routes, facilities, parcels, and constraints together so local partners can discuss the full picture at once.
Share a usable package
Deliver a map, memo, provenance, and confidence language that can move into a meeting without specialist translation.
Timeline
Current stage and next steps.
BurnLens is moving through a bounded Phase 0 process: scoping, build, review, and a continuation gate before any broader phase.
Pilot focus
One defined geography. One real planning question.
The Phase 0 pilot is centered on one defined planning geography in Deschutes County, Oregon. The goal is to test whether a planning-readable wildfire package improves local review of evacuation-route exposure and access constraints enough to support a county or city memo, briefing, or planning discussion.
What partners receive
A package built for review and meetings
Guardrails
Responsible use is part of the product, not a disclaimer added later.
Founder profile
Resume highlights behind BurnLens.
BurnLens is led by William “Drew” Baker, a Purdue graduate student in AI and machine learning building toward geospatial AI, remote sensing, and practical decision-support workflows for resilience planning.
The background combines applied AI evaluation, technical writing, energy-sector literacy, project communication, and leadership experience from education, instruction, student organization building, and scouting.
M.S. student in AI and ML at Purdue with emphasis on image recognition, forecasting, distributed control, and ethical AI.
Gen AI Associate evaluating prompt and response quality across large-scale model-improvement projects.
Technical writer experienced in turning complex technology and energy topics into accessible public-facing content.
Certifications
Leadership roles
Contact
Interested in the pilot, review process, or sponsorship fit?
BurnLens welcomes conversations with county and city partners, resilience organizations, prospective reviewers, and mission-aligned fiscal sponsors interested in practical wildfire planning support.