Project Firefly

Using drones equipped with vortex canons to better contain wildfires

Our solution is a novel and innovative approach to containing wildfires. We use drones that are equipped with a technology called vortex canons. These work similar to speakers, except they emit vortex rings. Air emerges from the vortex canon as a fast moving ball of air and as it propgates through it's surrounding medium (air) this ball curls back in on itself and creates a ring of air that expands as it travels. This ring has a positive pressure on one side and a negative pressure on the other, so when it comes in contact with fire it essentially pushes and pulls the fire plasma away from it's fuel base. This removes the fuel component of the "fire recipe": oxygen, fuel, and heat. 

Currently, wildfires are contained by digging trenches, cutting away at trees and shrub, or creating fire lines (burning controlled fires around the actual wildfire to use up the fuel). This is very unsafe and inefficient, and sometimes can actually make the wildfire worse (for example if the controlled fires get out of control). Perhaps these methods were sufficient 40 years ago, but thanks to hotter and dryer conditions created by climate change wildfires are much more frequent and intense than they used to be and in order to effectively fight them we need better methods and technology. Using drones equipped with vortex canons can significantly increase efficiency and effectiveness of wildfire containment efforts, and prevent personel from having to get too close to the wildfire and put their lives at risk. Wildfires can spread incredibly rapidly, up to an entire football field per second, so containment boundaries have to be built very far from the wildfire. By using drones, the boundary could be significantly smaller and protect a much larger area of land. Wildfires are a huge issue and impact a lot of people, both directly and indirectly. The 2020 California wildfires alone burned 4.2 million acres of land, destroyed 10500 structures, and cost $12 billion overall. Many people lost their homes, however many of those that weren't financially affected still suffered from health issues related to smoke exposure. It's estimated that the cost of long-term health costs related to wildfires in the US from 2008 to 2012 alone was $450 billion. The last few years have no doubt at least tripled this number given the multiple back-to-back record breaking wildfire years. Additionally, wildfires have a significant environmental impact. The 2020 Australian bushfires released 830 million tonnes of CO2 alone - an impact that was visible from space.

There are two main populations we hope to serve with our solution. The first is any personel who work in wildfire fighting. Three firefighters lost their lives in the 2020 California wildfires, which is an unimaginable tradgedy. With our solution we hope to reduce the number of personel who suffer injuries or casualties by reducing the amount of personel who need to be in the wildfires proximity in order to fight it and assist in preventing the extremely rapid spread of wildfires. The second main group are those who live in regions that are affected by wildfires. We hope to help prevent structures from being destroyed as well as reduce the amount of smoke released by wikldfires to prevent health issues. In the 2020 California wildfires, 33 lives were lost. With our technology, perhaps these deaths could have been prevented as it would have given them more time to evacuate safely

So far, we have mostly worked to understand how our solution could help the first population mentioned. We have conducted calls with previous firefighters and people who specialize in wildfire fighting innovation, and this has given us a pretty good understanding of the barriers they face both in the field and in innovating within the field. We hope to get a more first hand understanding in the future by attending basic wildfire fighting trainsing sessions or volunteering. We also hope to gain a better understand of our second population once our prototype is more developed.

We are working with a drone company and have built a basic prototype, however we ourselves are not yet an organization and are mainly focused on research and validation to ensure we are properly addressing the problem. We have also have not yet done too much testing with our prototype.

Working with ARSAC Technologies to help them test and gain exposure.