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A technology company in the Midwest is using drones and software to help firefighters tackle wildfires in a new way.
Drones that drop flaming spheres may seem like futuristic battlefield technology. And somehow, it is. It’s a way to “fight fire with fire” as the drones drop small fireballs that create controlled fires.
The drones are the brainchild of the Drone Amplified team. CEO and founder Carrick Detweiler has been with the company since 2015.
“We have the IGNIS system, which is linked to the drone system,” Detweiler told NTD, a sister media outlet of the Epoch Times. “[They] Have these little ping-pong balls; These things have chemicals in them and are relatively undetectable to begin with, but before we eat them we pierce them and inject them with a second chemical that starts a reaction after we throw them away.
The company calls them dragon eggs. After 30 to 60 seconds, the spheres will burn a little fire.
The drone-based air-launching system can deploy up to 120 spheres per minute and control the distance of one sphere every 50 feet as required by the fire.
“So it allows firefighters to see exactly where they need to use this fire line to create a backburner to use all the fuel ahead of the wildfire,” Detweiler said.
He said Cal Fire uses their systems.
“So now we have over a hundred systems in the field. Many of them are with federal agencies, the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, but we have systems from Cal Fire in California and Oregon, Colorado to Florida.
In California, 2022 has been another difficult year for wildfires, with more than 6,700 fires reported so far. Among the worst were the Mosquito Fire and the Fairview Fire.
Detweiler said there is a labor shortage, and he wants to provide tools to help firefighters do their jobs more effectively.
“We contacted the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and found out it was there [were] “There are many challenges in fighting these wildfires, especially aviation accidents and the need for more people and technology to fill this gap when there aren’t enough firefighters to do the job safely,” he said.
For the past few decades, environmental red tape has limited prescribed burns. But Detweiler said things are changing.
“We’re seeing a shift in the firefighting community because we recognize that fire is part of a natural ecological process, so you need a fire every now and then to destroy the debris on the forest floor. These are not huge wildfires. It’s a small fire that’s easy to put out or contain, and let these natural processes happen.” He said.
He works with a small team of about 10 people and builds all their systems in-house. In addition to weather forecasting, they use thermal and optical cameras to see fires in smoke and have software to help with mapping, providing up-to-date information with an “eye in the sky” to increase situational awareness.
The team began developing a prototype as part of research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After proving that the idea worked, Detweiler and his team saw a business opportunity and started a startup around drone research, which later became Drone Amplified.
The company uses its drones on every wildfire, because they believe that their system will save money and lives.
Conner is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area covering Northern California news.
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