About the Wildfires Prize Design

Prize Designs Wildfires
#1

XPRIZE Community members advised on the design of a prize to rapidly detect and extinguish wildfires.

About the Prize Design

The Wildfires Prize Design is an ambitious initiative that aims to identify transformative breakthroughs, with the purpose of incentivizing individuals and groups to implement them.

This project uses multiple methodologies to assess the current landscape of wildfire response, to ensure we design a Wildfires prize 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.

The final product of this process of researching and discussions, the Prize Design, will provide the outline of what the winning team must accomplish to be awarded the prize.

Join this online community of experts to get involved, and share your wisdom with the crowd!

The Challenge

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 detection and response?

The Goal

We are designing an XPRIZE to accelerate and scale innovation that unlocks possibilities to rapidly detect and extinguish wildfires.

The Prize Design will provide the outline of what the winning team must accomplish to be awarded the prize and define the parameters of the XPRIZE competition. It is audacious, yet achievable.

Your Role

The community is currently debating the challenges and opportunities associated with improving Wildfire response and driving new innovation.

We invite you to join us and other experts from around the world to share your wisdom with the crowd and advise us on the design of this XPRIZE Wildfires Prize Design!

What’s in it for you

We know your time is precious, and we appreciate your participation and input.

None of the other benefits below come close to the reward of knowing that you contributed to a truly transformative breakthrough.

We will regularly announce the most prolific community members to recognize their contributions. Participation allows you to:

  • Network with diverse stakeholders;
  • Brainstorm with top experts;
  • Promote your work;
  • Earn rewards, such as online gift cards and XPRIZE gift boxes; and
  • Be featured in XPRIZE blogs and podcasts.

Community rewards are announced at the end of each month.

XPRIZE team

This Prize Design is led by @DanSelz , @"DavidPoli " and @Eti Shechtman. @NickAzer manages the online community.

Need help?

Leave a comment here or contact the community manager, @NickAzer, via nick.azer@xprize.org.

#2

Looking to contribute to the discussion concerning wildland fire and maybe evaluate some BIG NEW idea that helps us to better live with fire and create more resilient landscapes and communities. I have had a very diverse career within wildland fire allowing me to travel the world and see it from many perspectives. A botanist/fire ecologist by training, a fire researcher, participated in both suppression and prescribed fire planning and operations, past-president of the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF). Currently active in the US National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy - Western Region, an EU Wildfire Task Force, and the National Firefighter Cancer Registry project with CDC/NIOSH as a stakeholder representative for IAWF.

#3

I believe that big OLD ideas, those of indigenous wisdom of millennia, will create resilient landscapes and possibly eliminate unnecessary wildfire damage. Here is a video of a group I help support and learn much from, and they use indigenous methods to restore and protect regarding wildfires. It has worked for many thousands of years to keep the landscape whole and healthy.

#4

I feel the XPrize for Forest Fires Must Get Inspired From Some Ancient Indian Wisdom which includes rituals integrated along with modern technology. …

So I feel the regions where forest fires start is many times close to human habitation…
And there is a ritual in India during the Springtime where Tribals collect Dry Wood from the forests and sell it to communities which organize bonfires during the first day of HOLI festival.
This is a community event where farmers celebrate the end of one cropping phase and also decide the crops that they need to select for the coming season. Also, the wood-ash left from the bonfire could be used to increase the PH levels of soil.
So if this network is built - between tribals and farmers - this would help manage forest fires based on human intelligence.

The second part is using Remote Sensing Analysis for figuring out how much water content is in the forest trees - that might help understand the regions to plan intervention. For example, using indexes like NDVI and NDWI to locate regions with low water content. Though NDVI or NDWI cannot penetrate the forest canopy, other thematic classifications could be used to understand the presence of dry foliage in the region.
Then I feel human intervention could be planned in those regions, like the steps I explained in the previous steps. This would prevent massive forest fires in the region.

#5

Hi, our UK based company captures CO2 and turns it into magnesium carbonate. Magnesium carbonate has unique fire retardant properties so we are looking at the possibility of using the slurry that comes directly from our process as a material that can be dropped in a line across the path of a forest fire to produce a fire break. It would be great to partner with members in this group to explore this possibility.

#6

Hi,
I came across this paper to predict fire by moisture in air and other data.

#7

Hi,
This is about a gel that could prevent fires and can work for long time ,also organic Engineer Creates a Sprayable Gel That Acts Like a 'Vaccine' For Wildfires

#8

A new technology using drone fitted with high energy Ultrasound to extinguish wildland fire without use of water or chemical.

#9

Hi, I own a robotics and IoT prototyping company in Longmont, Co which is located at the foothills of Rocky Mt. National Park. Fire is a huge concern in our state! We are looking for some partners to start thinking about and designing a solution for this problem. Feel free to contact me at jhartman@robauto.ai or robauto.ai. - Jalali Hartman, CEO Robauto

#10

A newly issued patent using drone to fight wildland fire without water or chemical.

www.RoboticVectorControl.com my own patent.