wildfires, forest

Only AI — and a fleet of drones — can prevent forest fires.

Dryad Networks, in fact, says it has developed an IoT network of AI and solar-powered drone sensors that detects the threat of wildfires and prevents them before they start. It’s the AI version of Smokey Bear. And on Tuesday, the wildfire-prevention technology announced $6.9 million in funding for Florian, its autonomous drone-based project.

“This vision is a great one, and I would like to see the internet of trees restore the forest and become a reality across the planet,” Carsten Brinkschulte, chief executive and co-founder of the Berlin-based company, said in an interview shortly after testing a fire-prevention system in Germany.

Unleashing an autonomous drone fleet armed with innovative fire-suppression technology such as acoustic waves, Florian is designed to extinguish wildfires before they have a chance to spread. The drones will be permanently stationed in high-risk forests susceptible to potential blazes. The sensors, which are water- and animal-proof, are especially keen at detecting smoldering and the smell of gas before smoke and an open flame ignite.

Dryad’s AI solution could save lives, homes and ecosystems, he said, by detecting and extinguishing fires in their infancy. The company intends to sell its technology to municipalities, private forestry, railroads and utility companies.

“We have detected hundreds of fires, and yes we did prevent one, in December 2023 in Lebanon,” Brinkschulte said. “A farmer was burning grapevines in a forest near a village, and we stopped him before things got out of hand.”

A longtime telecom expert who started and sold startups to BlackBerry and Twilio Inc., Brinkschulte was inspired to address climate change after a slew of wildfires ravaged California, Germany and the Amazon in 2018. “Why not do something useful and use telecommunications to address the problem?” he said. “We have fire alarms in every room, so why not take the concept to the forest?”

The $6.9 million investment will let Dryad scale its core product, the Silvanet wildfire detection platform, while advancing development of Florian. Silvanet is deployed in more than 20 countries across North America, Europe and Asia, with 20,000 sensors shipped to date. Its 50 customers are stretched from Spain, Greece and Portugal to California and Canada; the company has plans to expand in Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.

Climate change has not only raised temperatures worldwide but literally inflamed the chances of extreme wildfires, leading to new technologies like Silvanet for early detection and suppression of devastating damage to increasingly fragile ecosystems. Another technology from AiDash uses AI and satellites to pinpoint grid vulnerabilities in real-time, from failing infrastructure to overgrown vegetation.

“If there is any hope of mitigating wildfires caused by climate change, we have to adapt. Technology provides our best opportunity to do that,” AiDash CEO Abhishek Singh said in an email. “With tech like satellites and AI, we can already predict areas that are at risk and assess conditions before, during, and after a fire to take swift action; insights can help chart the most strategic course forward and direct resources accordingly. Solving the wildfire problem is imperative, and technology will not only protect critical infrastructure when it matters, it can minimize the harm wildfires inflict.”

Wildfires have accelerated in intensity and destruction because of climate change, Brinkschulte said. Dramatic shifts in weather have led to more rain and the overgrowth of vegetation in the winter followed by hot summers, which dries bushes and turns them into a tinderbox. “We don’t see more fires, but they are more devastating than in the past,” he said.

“As wildfires grow in intensity and frequency due to climate change, the need for scalable, proactive solutions has never been more urgent,” Boris Dorin, a partner at First Imagine!, a climate-tech investor in Dryad, said in a statement.

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