Similarly, California’s state-level wildfire agency, CAL FIRE, notes that six of the state’s most destructive wildfires have occurred within the last decade.
Two of these (the Palisades and Eaton Fires, which both took place in Los Angeles County) burned within the last 18 months. But it’s worth noting that during the first 12 hours of both blazes, the winds were so intense that no traditional firefighting aircraft could fly, much less drones.
In recent years, numerous wildfire agencies have expanded their use of cameras, infrared sensors, and mapping tools.
However, the act of putting out a blaze—“suppression,” in industry parlance—fundamentally remains a function of how many humans can quickly starve the fire of oxygen, heat, and/or fuel.
The basics behind fighting wildfires haven’t changed that much over the last century, and they primarily rely on manual labor: digging lines, removing fuel, and to a lesser extent, aerial drops of water.
Seneca founder Stuart Landesberg told Ars that his drones aim to supplement the equipment that wildland firefighters already have.
“The goal is: how do we supercharge what our firefighters are capable of?” he said. “We have this incredibly talented, incredibly devoted group of public servants. We want to give them the best technology in the world.”
Aspen Fire’s Chief Andersen added that, currently, his agency doesn’t have its own fleet of aerial resources. Calling in traditional aircraft from sister agencies can take hours.
“What we are getting is a trailer with five [drones, and we’ll drive it] as close as we can to the incident, and we will park and set up a little drone base,” he said, noting that if the initial tests are successful, he envisions permanent drone bases around the area.
“It would be ideal if we detect a fire and we can immediately launch one of these so we can investigate.”
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