Fire agencies test drones that can spray water on small wildfires

In short: Firefighting teams and companies are testing drones that can find and spray small wildfires quickly in California and Alaska.

What's going on

Wildfires are lasting longer in many parts of the US, and that is pushing fire agencies to look for faster ways to respond. This summer, several groups tested drones that can carry water, foam, or fire retardant (a chemical that helps slow fire).

In California, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also called CAL FIRE, ran a field test on July 15 using five autonomous drones. Autonomous means the drones can fly on their own after a person sets the destination, like typing an address into a car GPS. The drones worked together and dropped a total of about 500 to 1,000 gallons of foam to help suppress a fire, according to local reporting.

The drones came from Seneca, a company planning to sell the system starting in 2026. Each Seneca Argo-1 drone can carry about 100 pounds of water or retardant, and they are meant to fly in groups of four to six. A human operator uploads GPS points, then the drones use sensors to spot heat from a fire and take turns spraying it.

In Alaska, finalists in the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition tested a different system from Dryad Networks. Dryad uses solar-powered sensors attached to trees to detect smoke, like a neighborhood smoke alarm network. If a sensor triggers, an observation drone checks the area, then a suppression drone can drop up to 26 gallons of suppressant.

What to watch

These drones cannot replace large firefighting planes, because they carry much less and can only fly about 10 miles round trip when fully loaded. The key question is whether agencies will deploy them in real fire season conditions, where speed, reliability, and safe coordination with human crews matter most.

Source: Arstechnica