# WildfireVLM: AI-powered Analysis for Early Wildfire Detection and Risk Assessment Using Satellite Imagery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13305 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13305/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [LLMs-as-Judges: A Comprehensive Survey on LLM-based Evaluation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05579/) (2024)
- [GeoChat: Grounded Large Vision-Language Model for Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15826/) (2023)
- [YOLOv12: Attention-Centric Real-Time Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12524/) (2025)
- [RSGPT: A Remote Sensing Vision Language Model and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15266/) (2023)
- [EarthGPT: A Universal Multi-modal Large Language Model for Multi-sensor Image Comprehension in Remote Sensing Domain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16822/) (2024)
- [WildfireGPT: Tailored Large Language Model for Wildfire Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07877/) (2024)
- [Floorplan2Guide: LLM-Guided Floorplan Parsing for BLV Indoor Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12177/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Modular Deep Learning Mechanisms for Auditable Next-Day Wildfire Spread Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.17763/) (2026)
- [A Simulation-Grounded Agentic VLM Framework for Wildfire Monitoring and Reporting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.02451/) (2026)
- [AI4Fire: Evaluating Large Language Models on Wildfire Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10946/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Wildfires are a growing threat to ecosystems, human lives, and infrastructure, with their frequency and intensity rising due to climate change and human activities. Early detection is critical, yet satellite-based monitoring remains challenging due to faint smoke signals, dynamic weather conditions, and the need for real-time analysis over large areas. We introduce WildfireVLM, an AI framework that combines satellite imagery wildfire detection with language-driven risk assessment. We construct a labeled wildfire and smoke dataset using imagery from Landsat-8/9, GOES-16, and other publicly available Earth observation sources, including harmonized products with aligned spectral bands. WildfireVLM employs YOLOv12 to detect fire zones and smoke plumes, leveraging its ability to detect small, complex patterns in satellite imagery. We integrate Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) that convert detection outputs into contextualized risk assessments and prioritized response recommendations for disaster management. We validate the quality of risk reasoning using an LLM-as-judge evaluation with a shared rubric. The system is deployed using a service-oriented architecture that supports real-time processing, visual risk dashboards, and long-term wildfire tracking, demonstrating the value of combining computer vision with language-based reasoning for scalable wildfire monitoring. The code and dataset are publicly available on GitHub at https://github.com/Ayanzadeh93/_WildfireVLM_.