Fires. Portuguese AI platform is being tested

The SIION platform, described to Lusa by the creator, João Santos, as “a supermodel of fire fighting”, for helping in decision making and anticipation, using Artificial Intelligence, is already in the testing phase.

03/08/2026
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Lusa

“ A great added value is to be able to compress decisions in a short time. This is an artificial intelligence tool that analyzes a lot of data, not in real time, but almost, and what would humanly be almost impossible to decide, now the machine can predict with some degree of confidence”, explains João Santos, in an interview with Lusa.

SIION took second place in the National Final of ClimateLaunchpad, a contest for sustainable business ideas, which took place at UPTEC – Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia of the University of Porto, and is in the testing phase already in a business context, predicting the creator that between the end of this year and the beginning of 2027 could reach more companies and territories.

“ Basically, it is the next level of firefighting systems, a real-time recommendation system for resource positioning. It’s like a ‘GPS’ for commanders,” he adds.

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SIION differs from other existing fire behavior prediction systems by crossing information to “suggest what resources and where to be”.

“ We anticipate the decision, we call it a recommendation system, we are still at a very early stage. (...) [We want to] improve the efficiency of each resource, when resources are scarce, and anticipate dangerous areas for firefighters, anticipate what is the ideal resource for that type of fire ", exemplifies.

Platforms like this, it considers, help not only to anticipate or speed up decisions on firefighting, but also to prevent the effects of day wear upon working days on the ground.

“It reaches a point where it is no longer possible to process so much information. Where the wind goes, what kind of ground, flame... the machine can do all this in record time ", says.

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In tests to be able to incorporate technology into a product that can be applied in a real context, it describes it as “a supermodel firefighting” to enable those involved to be “one step ahead”.

João Santos, from Lisbon, is 41 years old, comes from a family of firefighters – from his brother to most cousins – and allied training in Forest Engineering to the master's degree in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science obtained at Liverpool University in June.

The second place in the UPTEC competition shows “some need” of this type of firefighting solutions, defends.

The competition was won by Latent Energy Systems, which is developing a thermal storage solution to decarbonize industrial heat, which will lead to the world final.