On one hand this effort sounds like a good way to generate some interesting concepts. On the other hand, as a long-time resident of a rural, wildfire-prone area, it's also important to educate the public and politicians that there is a large body of proven land management best practices that can already significantly improve prevention, control and mitigation. While we can always do better, we often aren't sufficiently utilizing the tools and techniques we already have.<p>The issues are more often political, economic and systemic than they are not knowing effective ways to further reduce risks and harm. Things like properly managed controlled burns are under-utilized because they are politically controversial. Enacting and enforcing codes mandating land management around private structures are politically unpopular. Out where I live, the local fire rangers just point-blank tell property owners "If you don't clear out all the brush and downed trees within a couple hundred feet of your structures, we're defending your house <i>after</i> the others that meet code" but no politician is willing to tell voters that. Worse, land owners continue to get permits issued to construct permanent dwellings in isolated locations which are extremely difficult to defend. If they want to build there, I say let them but also issue fair warning if they choose to proceed, they are on their own in the event of fire. Volunteer firefighters shouldn't need to risk their lives to defend houses which should never have been built in inaccessible, indefensible locations.
Not sure that completely stopping wildfires is a good idea as many species of plants depend on fire for seed germination. I think controlled burns may be the way to go instead of preventing wildfires completely
Anyone interested in linking up to register as a team for either track?<p>“Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence<p>In the Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence track, teams will have one minute to accurately detect all fires across a landscape larger than entire states or countries, and 10 minutes to precisely characterize and report data with the least false positives to two ground stations.<p>Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response<p>In the Autonomous Wildfire Response track, teams have 10 minutes to autonomously detect and suppress a high-risk fire in a 1,000 km2, environmentally challenging area, leaving any decoy fires untouched.”<p>I think these would be a fun problems work on. You can reach me at: Fire(AT)cynical.io<p>I don’t work in this space normally, currently I work as an SRE, but I am motivated. :)
I worked with a friend competing for a 0.5M prize to build a robot to collect material on the moon. The project was sponsored by NASA. After that experience, I would be hesitant to enter these kinds of completions. At first it seemed straight forward but as things got closer to the end, tiny details about how to the communicate with the robot and other things were changed. It was discouraging to put in all that work, have everything tested perfectly and then at the last minute some rule change comes along or they change things in the environment that was already tested in.
It's not really a competition at putting out wildfires, moreso detecting and tracking them. There are 3 separate prizes, so to speak.<p>$5M Autonomous Wildfire Response Track<p>$5M Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track<p>$1M Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize
Unless I'm misreading this, it doesn't include passive fire mitigation approaches.<p>For example, for low-frost areas of California -- which is about half the state currently (expanding all the time), we developed models for planting bananas and irrigating with recycled water, producing a profitable crop yield and providing a non-flammable barrier at the wildland-urban interface:<p><a href="https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21....</a>
The tagline "ending" wildfires is definitely misleading as of course they are a natural occurrence. But climate change has made them increasingly intense and frequent and although this may also be "natural" in a way it is also increasingly irreversibly destructive as the forests are not replacing themselves "naturally" but rather with invasive or otherwise undesirable species.<p>Xprize stuff is of course somewhat self-serving and this requires real investment to address (I am writing about one such effort in another tab) but better awareness and intelligence is not a bad thing. No one is talking about eliminating controlled burns or other measures, in fact as the environment macro factors shift we need more information to make informed decisions about when and how to do those.<p>It does serve the logging industry sure, but also major national forests and parks that serve many purposes. Fisheries and fishing companies benefit from watershed restoration and species-based protections but we don't think of it that way. Besides logging is not inherently evil, where do you think all those compostable paper products come from? A better timber industry is needed to support renewables and wildfire mitigation is a part of that evolution.
Wildfires aren't really the problem on a global scale. They are a bit of a pain in Australia, and US West coast sure.<p>The real problematic fires are currently man-made and entirely purposefully lit, i.e slash and burn agriculture. They are destroying the air and huge amounts of rainforest and jungle in places like Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Brazil, etc.<p>So while I commend the effort I think the bigger problem at hand is working out how to switch these agriculture systems over to more modern techniques and prevent further destruction of perhaps irreplaceable forests.<p>Most wildfires are generally in fire-prone areas where fires is a frequent and necessary part of life, detecting it sooner to save lives is good, developing better back-burning techniques to reduce intensity during fire season is also good. Just not as much impact on the world as aforementioned agricultural burning.<p>Even though we are at the tail end of the burning season in SEA you can still see how massive the problem is from this satelite detector run by NASA: <a href="https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/" rel="nofollow">https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/</a>
One of Australia's mining magnates has been supporting a similar initiative through his non-profit for the last few years with the goal of having any forest fire extinguished (probably managed) within an hour [1].<p>He's tipped into the XPrize as well [2].<p>[1]<a href="https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shield/" rel="nofollow">https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shie...</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips-in-for-a-global-prize-to-fight-bushfires-20230421-p5d268" rel="nofollow">https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips...</a>
This reminds me of the competition to try and stop Asian carp from hitting the great lakes: <a href="https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/" rel="nofollow">https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/</a><p>I hope that's enough to generate some innovation in the area to solve a very large and growing problem.
I wonder what format the winners’s submission would be. Maybe I’m missing something going through the website.<p>Would it be similar to that of a white paper? Or an actual demo. Or additional working detection hardware…<p>Under the past challenges, one mentions re-engineering a covid mask, so the end point is clear.<p>For this one, it feels much more open ended. Exciting, but I’m also quite curious, if anyone has an idea or examples.
I've read a lot of answers which suggest the usual things that are considered in the wider community, so it is a bit surprising that there are no AI type solutions put forth in this site for hackers.<p>Surely some way to detect and extinguish the beginnings - where these escape notice far from human eyes and noses - has a coding or robotics solution?
Fire is healthy for the ecosystem. What if instead of fighting the fires, we hardened our dwellings in some way so that they are mildly annoying instead of community ending?<p>Buried utilities, thick brick walls, bunker designs, breaker areas around infrastructure, drone tech to identify and, if possible, cull tumbleweeds, etc.
While a nice thought, the timeline (<18mo for the space-based sensor track) isn't aligned for developing anything truly new or revolutionary, just some quick reaction rehashing of existing tech (read: now with 'AI').
Increasing groundwater will lead to much less wildfire, because trees can bring up groundwater up to hydrate the landscape. There are many ways communities can work to recharge groundwater in their area.
It seems like the prize is not evaluated based on being able to predict wildfire behavior, but specifically on technologies for quashing wildfires as they start. The former makes a lot of sense, while the latter assumes an outdated perspective on wildland management.<p>Who does this serve?
Relevant article that explains how Trump may have actually been correct in mitigating forest fires by "raking the floor," stemming from a conversation he had with Finland's president:<p><a href="https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-raking-the-forests-but-what-they-dont-know-is-that-raking-is-an-actual-forest-treatment-method-in-us/588b7311-772f-3f5b-baa6-8bc56398fb67" rel="nofollow">https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-rakin...</a><p>Before the downvotes, please read the article. I have no political affiliation in the US, and this may be one of the only things Trump sorta maybe got right.