Wildfires present a complex, daunting and catastrophic challenge in today’s world. Threatening lives and costing billions in economic damages, the problem will continue to get worse as temperatures rise globally. How can we improve wildfire response to prevent the loss of life and assets?

In this project, XPRIZE is collaborating with partners worldwide to design a Wildfires Prize Design that drives scalable innovation that can rapidly detect and extinguish wildfires; a fully integrated autonomous system that detects, responds and suppresses wildfires, before escalation into a large fire event.

To be clear, XPRIZE does not believe that all fires should be extinguished - as we recognize the importance of fires in maintaining biodiversity and thinning fuel load. However, given the increasingly catastrophic consequences of some fires, we feel it is important to develop this capability to have at the disposal of fire managers around the world. The deployment of that tool, like any, should then be subject to careful and rigorous evaluation and regulation.

Click on the Register button in the top-right corner to create an account and join this effort, or click here to learn more before signing up.