(TNS) - Fire watchers tasked with helping prevent wildfires in Orange County will use virtual monitoring due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Orange County Fire Watch is using the virtual program in conjunction with its normal in-person monitoring activities.

OC Fire Watch is managed by Irvine Ranch Conservancy for OC Parks and the cities of Irvine and Newport Beach.

Tony Pointer, the conservancy’s fire watch manager, said the new system is crucial to keep volunteers safe, while maintaining adequate wildfire monitoring.

“This year, because of the COVID challenges, we wanted to recognize that there were individuals who needed to shelter at home and be safe at home while they still wanted to volunteer,” Pointer said. “We had been using the alert wildfire cameras for the past couple of years in the operations center for situational awareness.

“We expanded the role of those cameras to assign volunteers different camera feeds for them to be able to monitor at home and report off the camera feeds if they saw smoke or fire activity.”

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