Photos by Michelle Nortje

The newspaper headlines this summer are familiar from previous summers, but they are no less tragic: thousands of people suddenly being evacuated due to forest fires, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest lands lost to out-of-control wildfires. And more significantly, lives have been lost, both in people in these communities, and with firefighters.

For Alex Deslauriers, the forest fires had a personal impact, in August 2023. That’s when the community he lives in—Gun Lake, B.C.—was hit with a Level 6 wildfire. The Downton Lake fire burned through steep, wooded terrain at the western end of Gun Lake, northwest of Whistler, before flaring up and engulfing cabins. People in the area were ordered to evacuate. The intense blaze even sparked a fire tornado.

“The fire had been burning at a low level for months,” recalls Deslauriers. “It was being suppressed during the day by aircraft, but nothing could be done at night. Essentially, all the work that the firefighters were doing during the day, would get undone at night.”

The Downton fire was eventually brought under control, but not without doing a tremendous amount of damage in the small community—it is still rebuilding, two years later.

“I started thinking then how is this still happening with the technology we have today?” said Deslauriers.

“And that was good reason enough to start a company in this space—and we created FireSwarm Solutions a month after the fire in Gun Lake.”

FireSwarm is a wildfire technology startup which is pioneering autonomous aerial fire suppression solutions using ultra heavy-lift advanced autonomous Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)—or as they are usually known, drones. It is working on the development of patent-pending Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms and fire mission kits. The company is committed to enhancing the rapid detection, assessment, response to wildfires, and help ensure the safety of people and property.

FireSwarm systems are designed to operate in conditions when and where traditional aircraft cannot, and fill critical gaps in wildfire response. The drones will be able to operate 24/7, and, although the drones are large, they don’t require pilots.

“We’re a technology company that is working on the software that allows multiple machines to be flown automatically and, in time, autonomously, in and around wildfires,” Deslauriers explained.

FireSwarm has a partnership with Sweden-based ACC-Innovations, whose drones are able to carry up to 400 kgs of water. FireSwarm is automating and outfitting ACC-Innovations Thunder Wasp autonomous drones to detect hotspots and execute precise water drops—even in remote areas and during nighttime operations.

“That partnership allows us to sell their drones as a value-added re-seller—we buy the drones from Sweden, install a fire mission kit, and sell the machines to our customers, who will use our Swarm algorithm to allow the drones to fly into wildfire areas.”

ACC-Innovations have developed and manufacture a range of the world’s largest heavy lifting quadcopter drones. The company has already carried out demonstrations in Sweden of how its Thunder Wasp drone can be used for firefighting. With their high precision and maneuverability, a fire can be very effectively extinguished. Using automation and multiple drones, a fire can be fought 24/7 with minimal risk and exceptional efficiency, says the company.

ACC-Innovations has already been successful supplying a number of large markets, such as the military.

The venture with FireSwarm, and Deslauriers, who is a licenced pilot and has an aviation and technology background, looks to be a good fit. Deslauriers, who is an aerospace engineer, has worked as a software architect in the aerospace, defense and commercial aviation industries, including for Boeing.

FireSwarm has struck a deal with ACC to sell the machines in North America, but ACC could also sell the FireSwarm machines in Europe or elsewhere, as firefighting kit-equipped drones.

The heavy lift drones are hugely different from consumer drones, explains Deslauriers.

“When people think of a drone, they usually think of a battery-powered small machine that makes an annoying amount of noise.

“But the drone we are talking about for firefighting is a jet-powered quad copter, 16 by 16 feet, which weighs in at 400 kgs, and is able to pick up an extra 400 kgs of water.”

These drones are actually closer, in character and performance, to helicopters, he says.

“They are mechanically linked to be flown much like a helicopter, with variable pitch on the propellers, which enables the machines to be very nimble. We are able to adjust the pitch and roll with the variable pitching of the blades.”

And they will be well-equipped. The FireSwarm fire mission kit includes infrared sensors, LIDAR, forward, rear, right and left radar for obstacle avoidance, a radio communications system so the drones can “talk” with each other, and a satellite communications system. It has a custom load sensor for the Bambi buckets, which are used to carry the water for firefighting.

A key feature of the system, says Deslauriers, is the algorithm, which features Automated Intelligence.

The software which operates the algorithm is set up based on the various variables that affect the movement, and behaviour of fire. Then the AI, or machine learning, will start to kick in. As the drones do firefighting work, the AI will gather more information and will be able to make recommendations on the fuel loading, weather conditions and how the water can be best be dropped, for example.

“This data will be collected,” says Deslauriers. “If the water drop went well, it will learn from that. And if the water was dropped two seconds too early because a crosswind occurred, it will learn from that, too. In time, not only will it learn how to make decisions like a person would, it will suggest how to do things a person will not have thought of—but that is down the road.”

FireSwarm has involved a number of organizations in the development of its system, including BC Wildfire, Transport Canada, and aviation and search and rescue organizations.

And it is truly excited about a new partnership agreement with Strategic Natural Resource Consultants, as well as testing that will be done this summer in the B.C. Interior (see sidebar stories).

Since drones are aerial equipment, the regulations around their operation naturally falls to Transport Canada. Deslauriers explained that Transport Canada has created a section of regulations for drones.

“Up until this year, machines of the FireSwarm size would not have been allowed to fly in Canada, but as we move through the development process, Transport Canada is opening up the skies to larger and larger machines,” he explained.

“And the fact that we are proposing that our drone will be three pieces that will fit on the back of a Ford F450, and be driven to within the perimeter of a wildfire—that is what allows Transport Canada to provide us with the go-ahead.” So, instead of having equipment such as helicopters moving to the fire areas, they are taking the drones to the fire.

“Technology providers trying to automate a helicopter are still five to 10 years away from what we are doing now—they have to take that automated helicopter from an airport to the wildfire. With the FireSwarm drone, we will be there, right on the edge of the wildfire, ready to go into action,” says Deslauriers.

The FireSwarm drones, due to their high tech nature and being specially equipped, will be priced around $1.4 million (U.S.), which is a fraction of the cost of a similarly equipped helicopter, which would also have much higher operating costs. Initially, the drones will have an on-the-ground operator, to direct them, and tell them when and where to drop the water on a fire area.

“But as we train the AI layer of software on the drones, then these steps will become suggestions to the operator, saying where the drone is and asking if it is ok to proceed and do a water drop. It will, slowly, become automated.

“As our software continues development, we’ll be able to have the machines more and more automated—and then be autonomous. The AI algorithm will be making decisions on its own, and decide which part of a fire should be addressed—but an operator will there to click a button to tell it to return to home, if the drone does something unexpected.

“This is a long term product development progression,” Deslauriers added. “It will take time to get there—we are taking an approach of crawl, walk run.”

The fact that the drones can operate at night could be a huge plus. A fire boss would be able to look at what was done on a fire during the day, and then direct the drones on how to attack the fire overnight.

“At night, it’s clean and open air space, there are no people on the ground, and we can literally unleash the drones to fly at night and fight fires while the crew are sleeping. They could be working all night long—they can refuel in five minutes, and be ready to go again.”

Conceivably, the fire perimeter could be reduced to the point that by the next morning, crews are doing mop-up exercises.

Overall, big picture, it’s clear that government and the forest industry, and all parties involved, have to start to do things differently to control and manage wildfires—doing the same old will not suffice, as we can clearly see in the number and severity of forest fires.

“It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong in how we fight forest fires,” says Deslauriers. “We just have not been able to keep us with the pace at which change is occurring, with wildfires.

“The problem we’re facing,” he says, “is that because of climate change we’re seeing an acceleration in the behavior of fires, and the level of humidity is not what is used to be. These changes are outpacing our ability to keep up.”

Fighting fires with heavy duty drones is not the absolute solution, but it can be part of the solution, he says. Drones will never replace the effectiveness of a CL 415 water bomber, and its ability to drop over 6,000 litres of water or fire retardant in a single go. But, as noted, the heavy duty drones can be cost effective, and operate around the clock—and importantly, no people are at risk because, unlike helicopters or planes or with firefighters, they don’t require pilots or boots on the ground—in extremely dangerous situations.

Deslauriers noted that there are other companies that are also doing work to control wildfires. B.C.-based SenseNet, for example, has a focus on stopping wildfires before they get out of control, using smart sensors and AI to detect them early and send fast alerts.

Notably, FireSwarm is in an XPRIZE competition for developing fire-fighting equipment.

XPRIZE, a leader in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, has launched XPRIZE Wildfire, a four-year global competition that will award $11 million in prize funding to teams able to develop and demonstrate fully-autonomous capabilities to detect and extinguish wildfires.

XPRIZE Wildfire incentivizes teams from around the world to innovate across a wide range of technologies in two complementary tracks designed to transform how fires are detected, managed, and fought.

In the Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence track, teams will have one minute to accurately detect all fires across a landscape larger than entire U.S. states or countries, and 10 minutes to precisely characterize and report data with the least false positives to fire managers on the ground.

In the Autonomous Wildfire Response track, teams will need to monitor at least 1,000 square kilometres, and autonomously suppress a wildfire within 10 minutes of detection.

“We’re excited about being the only Canadian company in the XPRIZE competition,” says Deslauriers.

 

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