In 2024, nearly 1,700 wildfires burned a combined one million hectares of land in British Columbia. Roughly 160 evacuation orders or alerts affected over 15,000 properties province-wide.
One-third of wildfires are caused by human activity, the Province estimates, with the rest being attributed to natural factors such as lightning. Whether man-made or nature-triggered, controlling and mitigating the damaging effects of these wildfires is important work. They cannot be eliminated, but they can be managed.
Prevention is the best medicine, which involves improved forest management. But once a fire has sparked, the next best approach is putting it out quickly—and that’s where modern technologies are starting to help.
Among the startups deploying tech to combat wildfires in B.C. and beyond is FireSwarm Solutions.
Based out of Squamish, FireSwarm deploys autonomous drone swarms to mitigate wildfire situations. The firm’s flagship product is a heavy-lift, long-endurance unmanned drone army powered by an AI-driven surveillance platform.
“Wildfire crews, communities, and ultimately families will be safer once our services are approved and ready for deployment in Canada,” posits Alex Deslauriers, chief executive officer of FireSwarm.
This month, the Canadian company revealed a partnership with Prince George’s Strategic Natural Resource Group, the largest Indigenous-owned natural resource management and consultancy firm in Western Canada.
“This BC-based collaboration represents a true step change in wildland firefighting,” Deslauriers stated. “Together, we’re advancing technology that has the potential to become a standard tool in the field—especially in the currently underserved areas of night and remote wildfire attack.”
The partnership combines Strategic’s expertise in emergency response management with FireSwarm’s first-of-its kind wildfire defence platform.
“We see this unique opportunity to combine our expertise with firefighting and remote aircraft operation in resource management to make a monumental improvement in early attack opportunities,” commented Domenico Iannidinardo, CEO of Strategic. “Extending our operations to nighttime is an intuitively efficient and generational leap in safety for communities and infrastructure threatened by wildfire.”
Last year, FireSwarm partnered with Tsunami Solutions. The startup has been recognized by XPRIZE, an environmental activism competition.
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