The Rain System  “contains wildfires within 10 minutes of ignition”
I&#x27;m very intrigued by the potential for new wildfire tech but as someone who lives in wildfire land in Montana i have my doubts about this video... detecting putting out a campfire is a pretty idealized case.<p>Most fires in our area seem to be started (either by lightning or an improperly extinguished  campfire) and then exist as an undetectable underground smolder for quite a while until hot, dry, windy conditions emerge. Then they can blow up incredibly quickly: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OxcDxp07okc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OxcDxp07okc</a><p>The current system of lightning strike tracking, inferred overflights, lookouts and helicopter bucket&#x2F;crew drops works pretty well. They literally drop a crew who can dig down and put out the smoldering parts and then drop a huge amount of water from nearby lakes on starts to get them out.<p>I could absolutely see drones improving the detection of smolders&#x2F;smoke plumes but the method they have for putting fires out seems like it wouldn&#x27;t work on buried smolders or anything that had grown too big. I wonder if they have considered something like a swarm of drones that could scoop water from smaller closer water sources and maximize the delivery rate vs the current helicopter and tanker systems.