The Ben Mulroney Show - Weather nuttery - from floods in New York to mapping wildfires in Canada

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

-  Mihalis Belantis. Chief Executive Office AISIX - Mohit Rajhans Mediologist and Consultant, ThinkStart If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: @benmulroneyshow Twitter: @benmulroneyshow TikTok: @benmulroneyshow Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty, it's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control and not talk about how it's affecting you. But the truth is, you're allowed to feel overwhelmed.

You're allowed to say, I'm not okay right now. And trust me, I have been there. Whether it's the state of the world stress at home, or just feeling like you've got to have it all together and have all the answers, you don't have to hold it in. Better help is here to help with the world's largest network of licensed therapists. They've already supported over 5 million people, you can connect with a therapist online from wherever you are, no waitlist, no office visits. And if it's not the right fit you can switch anytime it's time to put your mental health on the agenda talk it out with better help visit better help comm slash Mulroney today to get 10% off your first month that's better help HLP comm slash Mulroney the

2025 Nissan Sentra isn't just another compact car its consumer reports top pick in its class. Why? It'd be all other compact cars for exceptional reliability, value, and safety to become Consumer Reports' 2025 top pick. Right now, lease the 2025 Sentra for the equivalent of $59 weekly for 36 months. Hurry in to your local dealer today. SCVT for $256 monthly with $2,895 down at 3.49%. Includes.5% loyalty reduction for qualifying Nissan owners.

Conditions apply. See Nissan.ca for details You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show on this Tuesday, July 15 Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your day with us You are listening to the Ben Mulroney Show on this Tuesday, July 15th. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your day with us. You may be watching us on YouTube or as a podcast on all the podcast platforms, maybe as on a streaming app or on the good old fashioned radio. Wherever you find us, we say thank you. Also, not for nothing, but we're doing pretty well as a show on Instagram right now.

So feel free if you're not following us there, follow us, like our content, share it with your friends. The more people we can get as part of this conversation, the better it will be for us. And hopefully we'll make a show that resonates with you, our listeners. We always like to start a segment with a little smile, right? And New York is a particular type of place, isn't it? It's a place that invites the world in and people go there from all points. And when they get there, some people are very, very excited.

But every now and then, when you make a statement in New York, New York makes a statement right back. Let's listen to this. I finally made it to New York City. Hey ladies, shut the f*** up! There you go. That's New York. That doesn't happen in Toronto. That doesn't happen in Calgary. That doesn't happen anywhere. That happens in New York. And speaking of New York,

look, in the city of Toronto, we think we've got problems with our transit system. But their subway, yesterday, was quite literally under water. There were crazy flash floods in New York and New Jersey and the subways were submerged. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency due to flash flooding and high levels of rainfall in parts of the state.

He told everyone to stay indoors and at least six East Coast airports, including JFK, were forced to ground flights over because of the storms causing severe delays, throwing people's plans, their travel plans into chaos. And of course, there are knock on effects as well. Right. If there's a problem at JFK, there's going to be a problem at O'Hare. There's going to be a problem in Toronto. And there's going to be a problem in Vancouver and on and on and on. We saw the flash floods in Texas. Now we see flash floods in New York and New Jersey. The weather has been wild, absolutely wild. And from the water that we see in Texas and now in New York,

let's go to the fires raging in Manitoba. I'm looking at a map right now of the fires in Manitoba. I'm looking at a map right now of the fires in Manitoba. There are the total number of fires so far this year, 290, with 161 being natural and 124 human caused, which is just shocking and disappointing that there's so many that have been caused by human carelessness or human error, who knows. Right now it's an extremely active wildfire season with 1.25 million hectares burnt to date, far exceeding their usual levels. I'm looking at the map, so many of these fires are

out of control right now. There's only, I mean, I'm looking at maybe less than a quarter of them are under control. The rest of them are either out of control or what's called being held. That's one step below. And then the other ones are monitored. So in between under control and out of control. So are we winning the fight right now in Manitoba? Probably not in the way that we want. Nearly 100 active fires are burning

and Wabkanoo, his government and the people of that province are all hands on deck trying to save as much of the province as they can right now. But if you wanna see cooperation, you gotta take a look at the the fireman that came in from Mexico. There are looks like dozens of them that came in from Mexico to help their brothers and sisters as the firemen of that province to fight these incredibly difficult fires right now. That to me is a wonderful, wonderful sign of international cooperation.

So how can we best mitigate against these things? And we keep talking about AI and how it's changing everything. It's changing every industry, it's changing every sector. Well, is it the right tool to be used and applied to modeling how these fires grow? I have told you before that I am a advisor to a company called AI6, and that's exactly what they do.

This is AI predictive modeling technology that can help governments as well as insurance companies better understand where fires are gonna start and if they start, how they're gonna burn. And we're joined now by the CEO of AI6, Mahalas Balantis, welcome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me, Ben.

Great to be here. So listen, this is not something we ever wanna talk about. It's not something we wanna deal with. Ideally, there would be no wildfires. There would be no need for this. But now we see it every year. Last year it was Alberta, now it's Manitoba. It seems like this is just a regular

every year occurrence for us now. Yeah, and I think that year on year in it's going to get worse and worse. And I think, sorry, and I think that what we're seeing, you know, we're seeing it move across the country where we had lots of higher risk and probability out west. We're going to see it move out to Ontario. And now I think that you guys are going to have a bigger problem come the years moving forward than we are out west. I think there's a higher risk out here now

than there is out west. And is it due to, what is it, the forest are too dry? Is that what it is? Yeah, well, I think we're seeing climate change. I think some of my friends say the net benefactors of climate change is you guys here in Toronto, because you have Miami type weather now, right? That's gonna lead to drier conditions.

It's gonna lead to more, this heat, the heat that you guys are experiencing is going to lead to more, more probability and risks of wildfires. This number though, 124 human caused fires in Manitoba. That's a, that's an insanely high number. Yeah. It's sad actually, you know, when you think about it, that humans don't take to what they're doing into consideration. And I think that's like, you actually, when you think about it, that humans don't take what they're doing into consideration. And I think that's like, you know, when we're going to talk about our modeling, I think that's something that we take into consideration is the ignition.

And whether it's naturally caused or human caused, right? And the percentage that's human caused is pretty astonishing. Yeah. Last year, or earlier this year, we watched as Southern California burned. The Palisades fire at the Southern California was just, and it was a combination of wildfires, but also in an urban setting, something you don't often see. Yeah, well we saw that in 2013 or 2016 in Fort Mac, right? Once these fires get to a certain called, you know, the fire, the fire weather, the making of the beast. I think I gave you a copy of it. You know, it's compelling story to actually hear what happened in Fort Mac where, you know, houses were evaporating in five minutes. Right. And like, and to get ahead of the fire,

you know, to put a fire break in, they were knocking down subdivisions, pushing them into the basement to give space for the fire. It's It's wild. Well, cause it's almost like a living breathing thing. 100%. And that's- It's a beast. So that's what we're gonna talk about with AI being used to track and model and predict how these fires are gonna move.

Why is that important? Why is it important to understand how they're gonna grow and where they're gonna go? Well, I think that's step one of understanding and mitigating your risk, right? Is understanding what your risks and hazards are, right? So I think that the country should take an approach and look at where the highest risk and probabilities are

and start there with mitigation planning, right? And start taking action on it. There was a list that we put out earlier this year of the top municipalities, I believe, that were that were at risk of a wildfire and at the top of the list, I believe was a town in Alberta. Yeah, so out of that list, you know, that's where our models prove it's beginning continuing to prove itself, you know, Fort Smith Northwest Territories was on fire this year, Swan Hills, Alberta, Swan Hills, that's it, and Kenora as well, right. So we predicted all three of those being in high probability for wildfires.

Yeah, but sadly, the other municipalities get a little upset, right? Oh, for sure. Definitely. But we also saw that some of the municipalities that we did mention on that report in January, they started taking action and doing some of the fire smart Canada stuff that needed to be done. Yeah. Well, listen, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back,

I want to drill down because I want people to understand what this company is doing differently than has been done in the past. How AI is revolutionizing this sort of information that we can then hand over to the powers that be so that they can be better prepared in the event of a wild fire. This is a really important conversation. I'm very glad you're here. Thank you very much, my friend. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben of a wildfire. This is a really important conversation. I'm very glad you're here. Thank you very much, my friend. Don't go anywhere.

This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And it seems every year now, as sure as summer warms us all, that wildfire season is upon us. It's automatic now. We don't have a single summer without wildfires. We don't know where they're gonna pop up.

We don't know how bad they're gonna be. And we don't know, and a lot of times we're caught flat-footed. I'm continuing my conversation with the CEO of AI6, Mahalas Balantis. And I've said before, I have a professional relationship with AI6, and it is a wildfire modeling software company. It's a platform that uses AI to predict

where these fires are gonna start and if they start, how they're gonna grow. Is that accurate, is that fair? Yeah, absolutely, it's a predictive model. Yeah, and we need tools like this because like I said, if we don't have them, and if we don't use them, we have out of control fires that we just cannot get control of before they just run their course. For sure, and more importantly, we need to take action on these

models, not just look at these models, right? It's one thing to know where your risks and hazards are, but people need to start taking action and doing mitigation planning for them and taking steps to protect. Well, look, this country is very good at making the bold pronouncement of always being very early at the party to say, we're gonna do this and this is the future and that's the future, and then we stop short. And it's very nice to see that our prime minister

has sort of elevated our very first minister of AI, which to me signals that this government is going to take AI very seriously. But how hard has it been on the business side to convince governments that this is a tool and tools like this should be implemented beyond what they used to use in the past? Yeah, well, we're still working on that. We still haven't got complete buy-in from the government. We're still knocking on doors and letting them know who we are introducing ourselves.

So we're hoping to get more traction with the government municipalities, but right now we're getting a lot of traction with insurance companies because they really care about their risks and hazards and what they're insuring. But if you were in the hands of the government in Manitoba, what would you be able to tell them

that the tools that they use can't tell them? What can AI6 do that the tools of the past just couldn't do? Yeah, I'm not sure what the government in Manitoba is using or what they've used in the past, but what we found in the models that were before, before what we've created was, they're using a very simple process, the fire weather index,

which is one of the four components that go into our models, right? We model ignition, which you mentioned, you know, we do a historical 400,000 fires, were they naturally, or humans started, topography fires start, you know, move a lot faster going uphill than they do downhill. The maps of the vegetation fuel is very important, like what is burning, you know, depending on what is burning, the speed that it's going to burn in the heat that's going to burn. Cause you know, in a west, we have a lot down actually in Ontario, you guys have a lot more of those broad broad leaf trees, right? Where we don't have those out west. Right? So our fires tend to be start and be a lot more intense than this stuff out here. And then the weather, right? I think the insurance companies have a, have a model where it's like 30, 30, if it's 30 degrees

and below 30% humidity, you're prone for wildfire season, right? So the AI component, what is it? It's able to think faster. So it can put all that together and it can model. It runs millions and millions of simulations under different SSP1, SSP two, SSP three, all the different climate scenarios that's out there. Right. So, and depending on where we're at in that, in that structure, whether we're at SSP one, whether you believe we're SSP one or SSP five, it really mitigates, like shows you what the risks and hazards are.

Mahalas, can we, can this technology be applied to a fire that is currently burning? We don't have the key, but we're not an emergency response platform today, but yeah, with a couple of components, like adding live wind and some of the weather components, it could become a real time following. But even now we can show you, if we can model the fire to show you how it would spread if the conditions were like this

or if the conditions were like this, right? Depending on where the wind's coming from and what the weather's like. But the goal is to get communities and governments to appreciate that tools like this, we don't have to focus and make it all about AI sex, but tools like this that are engaging with AI to provide far more predictive information than before.

If they start using it early enough, they can mitigate against this sort of thing. No, absolutely. And I think you said it like, you know, uh, wildfire season. I think it's something new to like out, out, out East, but out West, if you're from the British Columbia province of British Columbia, you know, a wildfire season has been a thing for a very long time. So I bought a property out there, a small ranch in Canuff Lake, British

Columbia, and after the first wildfire season, you know, the locals are called wildfire season is over and we had, we had a calm one and I'm like, what, wildfire season's over and we had a calm one. And I'm like, what is wildfire season? Right? Like, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's, you know, it's been a real thing out there. Like, but you said it, like it's moving across the country

now where every year we're gonna have to, it's wildfire season, you know, start in May till the end of September, beginning of October. What did you think of the American Congress people who took issue with the fires that were raging? They said, you know what, it's very inconsiderate of you guys in Canada to have these fires because you're making it very hard for us South of the border to enjoy our summer. Yeah, that's I don't know what to say to that Ben I and I don't know what the comment to that is

I guess they're doing what they have to do for their constituents, right? But you know out West we've been dealing with smoke for years, right? Like my hometown is Calgary, Alberta. And I remember the first time smoke, you know, blew in there and we're like, what is this? And it's coming from the fires from British Columbia, right? So we're used to it out there, right? It's part of our summers. We're happy the summers like the so far this year, it's been a tame one.

So we haven't had a lot of smoke move in. But the Americans are focused on forest management, right? That was in that they wrote that in the letter that they sent to our Canadian ambassador in Washington, saying, we know that a lot of this is due to sort of human carelessness, and we saw the numbers that bear that out, so I take their point,

but they also point to forest management. How can a technology like ours factor the concept of forest management into prediction? Yeah, I don't know. Well, what we can show them where the highest risk and probabilities are, what areas are most prone to burn. But you know, the mitigation work to clean a forest, you're talking the budget for it. The dollar amount would be astronomical, right? I think Trump said it best, clean the forest.

A lot easier said than done though, right gentlemen? So sweep the forest. Yeah, exactly. So to go back to my property, when I bought it in 2018, the amount of deadfall that was on the property, eight acres, took me three years to clean. And I had to bring in an excavator and a skid steer. It wasn't being done by a couple of people in a chainsaw.

But given the fact that we're watching these wildfires rage out of control in Manitoba, couldn't somebody make the argument better to spend all that money managing the forest than to have it burn and have to deal with that? I don't know what the economics of that is, but you know, like again I'll go back to my property three years and I have to buy an excavator and a skid steer so you think I'm trying to clean the boreal forest or what's burning right now? I don't know.

I think what we need to do is mitigate and understand our risks around the municipalities. And fire smart our municipalities, right? So I don't think we're gonna be able to clean the forest, but I think we'll be able to protect our communities a lot better than we are. Well, cause look, you've got in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, in Manitoba,

and certainly in Northern Ontario, you've got in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, in Manitoba, and certainly in Northern Ontario, you've got a lot of small municipalities that are surrounded by trees. That's right. Right? And so forget the property, you've got lives that could be at risk if they don't take this sort of thing seriously. It might not have been something that people need to take seriously 10, 15 years ago, but today it is apps. It's not a certainty that your community will catch fire. But it is, you know, all like doing what you can to prevent it is something you should

do every year. That's right. That's right. You know, I think one example is the Jasper fires. If you know, Jasper would have looked at a predictive model and seen how high the probability or risk is and then gone in and done the mitigation work. But then again, it's very political there, right? Where you're not allowed to cut a tree in Jasper, right?

Well, you know, they should have cut them. They should, yeah. They should have cut a lot of work they could have done there to protect the parks. And it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. Absolutely. That is not going to be returned to its former glory for years. Because of something that I don't know how much it would have cost to

do the work that you just said, but you could look at it and say, you know, had we done that, we wouldn't be looking at what we're looking at now. In a place specifically like Jasper, yeah, I think the budget should have been there. And you're seeing that now in the National Park, you're seeing prescribed burns. Where else, how far can AI take us in this world? I have to assume we're scratching the surface of how effective this technology can be. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, good data in, good data out, and every year we're getting better and better data, right? So the model's going to get better and better. Well, listen, I want to thank you very much, Mahales, for being

here. This is, look, like I said, I want to share with my listeners when I am working with a company that I think is doing good. I like to associate with what I call companies that subscribe to campfire, campground rules, leaving the world in a better place than they found it. This is exactly that. Yeah, and in this situation, hopefully not burning the campground,

helping it not burn, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm very pleased to be part of the company. I do hope that we can get it into the hands of as many, like you said, municipalities and governments as possible, because I think it is a tool that it could be of benefit to them. But I want to thank you very much, my friend, and I wish you the very best.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. All right, don't go anywhere. When we come back, we're going to keep talking about AI, but this time with Mohit Rajan's. And we're going to ask the question, are the Chinese finally getting good at making cell phones? That's next, right here on the Ben Well Renew Show. Oh, yeah. All you sharktastic fanatics here for summer's best beach party.

They're all here. Hammerheads, great whites, so many sharks I can't even name them all. That's right, Daddy-O. Show me that smile. Sharkfest, all week long on National Geographic.