We're almost losing the battle with fire.
We're trying to suppress it with the same tactics
we've used for 50, 60, 100 years.
And we're at a point now where we need to find new ways
to fight fire and new technology.
My name is Simon Weibel and I'm the director of fire operations
and client development for Drone Amplified.
Fighting fire with fire has been one of the tactics used in wildland fire for a very long time.
So, our system is just another tool that fits into that ecosystem.
In 2020, which was one of our first major fire seasons
with the federal U.S. Forest Service using our system,
they dropped over a half million balls on wildfires.
Traditionally, this was done from helicopters,
so they would have a PSD dispenser out the door of the helicopter
with an operator and then they'd fly back and forth
and drop the balls in an area where they were working.
That's one of the most dangerous things in fire you can do with a helicopter.
Almost a quarter of all deaths
in wildland fire come from aviation.
And so, what this does is it takes the operator outside
of the helicopter and allows it to be done safer, cheaper, and more efficient.
There's always going to be a place for helicopters in aerial ignition,
but we're able to utilize our system on burns
that traditionally wouldn't be done with those aerial resources,
because they’d be too dangerous or too small.
The Ignis system uses
the PSD technology - a plastic sphere dispenser.
And so what it is is you have little balls that are made out of plastic
filled with about three grams of potassium permanganate.
And what this system does is inject it with glycol.
So we use over-the-counter antifreeze.
And what that does is it starts an exothermic reaction that acts as a fuse.
So, when we drop the balls from our hopper, they're going through
that chemical reaction and getting hotter and hotter and hotter.
And then, after about 20 or 30 seconds, it gets hot enough to combust the plastic.
And basically, we're making micro ignitions points,
which then catch the receptive fuel bed on fire
and we can really control the fire intensity, where the fire goes,
and how hot it burns.
Generally, there's going to be a situation where
on a wildfire they want to do a burnout.
So, instead of going direct and cutting a line right along the edge of the fire,
they're going to back off the control lines to build that containment line
and then create a fire they control and push it back towards the main fire.
If they're going to utilize the Ignis system, generally they would set up a drone spot, or LZ,
and put the drone up in the air and scout the line, scout the fire
with the infrared and the visual camera, get an idea of what's happening.
Then we would put the Ignis on the drone,
so it just fits on the payload rails and then connects through the drone's flight controller.
And then they're going to see through the burn boss,
or whoever's in charge of the operation, where they want the balls to be dropped.
I think we're at a point now where
our system and our company is one part of a bigger puzzle.
We're seeing advances in aerial firefighting from helicopters doing night operations
to customer-facing companies that alert the public
when they need to evacuate.
So, I see a trend towards where we need to head,
which is having technology not replace,
but enhance our ability to operate around these big wildfires.