The Aspen Fire Protection District is adding autonomous drones to its arsenal of firefighting technology.
The self-flying helicopters are made by Seneca, a northern California startup that launched in October.
Aspen Fire will become the initial customer of the company’s fire suppression drones, which it believes are the first of their kind.
“We've talked to every one of the chiefs from the largest departments in California,” said Stuart Landesberg, Seneca’s CEO. “We work with the former U.S. Fire Administrator, the folks at Cal Fire — if there were another player doing this, we would know.”
The mini-helicopters can be controlled with an iPad, but they find their own way to a fire using self-navigating technology and infrared sensors.
They’re light enough to be lifted by hand and can fit in the back of a pickup truck. They carry 12 gallons of water, which can either be sprayed as water or mixed with a solution to shoot out 60 gallons of foam.
That’s not enough to put out a raging wildfire.
But Aspen Fire chief Jake Andersen said it could be a “game changer” for suppressing small fires that start in places without road access.
“Historically, if there was something up the ridge that it might take you an hour or two to get there, that was just what it was,” Andersen said. “And this can decrease that time to water on the fire by a substantial amount.”
Landesberg thinks that response time can be cut to ten minutes.
“If you had a ten minute response time from the moment of first detection across Colorado, across any area, the risk profile goes down so much,” Landesberg said. “You're seeing fire intensity increasing, but the number of firefighters is not keeping pace, so the only way that we can solve the problem is by leveraging technology, especially to get there earlier.”
Aspen will be getting a “strike force” of five drones, which it hopes to start using this summer.
The idea is that while one drone is flying back to base to get refilled and fresh batteries, the next can move toward the fire and pick up where the first left off.
“If you have a close enough turnaround rate, you can just kind of keep them going,” Andersen said.
Andersen said there’s still a lot of details to be worked out with agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Interior and the U.S. Forest Service.
And since it’s unproven technology, the department is relying on private donors to fund the pilot project. Andersen said they’ve received a partial contribution from the Hurd Family Foundation, but are still looking for additional donors.
The drones build on Aspen Fire’s record of fire tech early adoption. The department was also the first to test Pano AI cameras in 2021, which are trained to detect smoke. Those have since expanded throughout the state.
Andersen describes the drones as another “tool in the toolbox,” but he also knows that they are “what most people think is going to be the future of firefighting.”
He’s glad some of the tech world’s brain power is being put towards addressing wildfires.
“Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited for the day when a drone can bring me a taco to my house,” Andersen joked. “But I'm really, really happy that these guys are focused here.”
