xPrize Wildfire – $11M Prize Competition

https://www.xprize.org/prizes/wildfire

by TheBlapse • 3 years ago

73 69 3 years ago

Steven420• 3 years ago

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

Etheryte• 3 years ago

And the competition is not about completely stopping wildfires, as is clearly stated on the linked page. They target what they call Extreme Wildfire Events which are roughly 3% of all wildfires. The focus is on detecting and suppressing those, as those 3% of all wildfires account for 80% of the total damages.

exabrial2• 3 years ago

Controlled burns have been shown to be carbon negative. The destroy invasive species that have not evolved to handle the natural processes native to an area.

Humans are actually the biggest issue, once again. Prescribed burns are healthy for ecosystems and for the planet itself.

soperj5• 3 years ago

Best way to end destructive fires is to light destructive fires. The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry.

exabrial2• 3 years ago

The majority of the logging industry is a good thing for the planet. When you log sustainably, you take fixated carbon, turn it into a product that can be used, then allow the area to regrow, fixated more carbon as a building product. The vast majority of the time, it's a win-win.

The negatives are supplying things like cheap paper to the post office for marketing departments to across to spam people using US Postal Mail. _Thats_ what needs to be stopped, as it's just a waste.

soperj5• 3 years ago

I honestly would be very surprised if they didn't make more CO2 logging and turning that tree into a building product than they sequester. Postal spam is likely even more damaging.

oatmeal1• 3 years ago

The majority of the logging industry is a good thing for the planet.

Absolutely not. The amount of carbon sequestered is inconsequential relative to the habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, species going extinct, etc.

stonogo5• 3 years ago

Spoken like someone who hasn't had to spend weeks with off-the-charts smoke-based air quality problems, followed by hundreds of thousands of people having to replace air filters in houses and cars.

mkoubaa• 3 years ago

Why do you get that impression?

soperj5• 3 years ago

I live in the pacific northwest... If they light the fires in Spring when it's still wet, you don't get the same magnitude of fire in the summer. It would also help if they didn't spray the areas afterwards with round-up so that Aspen (a fire break species) doesn't grow, so that they can plant round-up ready Pine (a species that promotes fires).

idiotsecant2• 3 years ago

There is very little focus on protecting logging and a lot of focus on protecting suburban sprawl. We live further and further into ecosystems that up until recently could have burned with minimal impact to humans. Now those same forests are full of cabin-mansions and summer homes of people who are rich enough for the system to care about them.

soperj5• 3 years ago

In my Canadian province (BC) most of the trees (and fires) are where people don't live, it's very much about protecting their #1 export (tied with Coal)

notatoad• 3 years ago

The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry.

also, the rural property owners.

uoaei2• 3 years ago

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.

Who does this serve?

stonogo5• 3 years ago

It serves the people whose houses are burned and the even larger population who has to live in smoke-polluted air for days or weeks at a time. The prize targets extreme wildfire events, as it says explicitly. Not one of the prizes relates to quashing anything, it's all detection and tracking.

uoaei2• 3 years ago

Then someone should probably inform their copywriter that "End Destructive Wildfires" is not an accurate framing of the goals. More like "End Community Destruction By Wildfires"

giarc• 3 years ago

It's not really a competition at putting out wildfires, moreso detecting and tracking them. There are 3 separate prizes, so to speak.

$5M Autonomous Wildfire Response Track

$5M Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track

$1M Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize

mrandish2• 3 years ago

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.

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 after 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.

westurner7• 3 years ago

Wildfire suppression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics

History of wildfire suppression in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppressio...

Controlled burn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn

A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, [1] backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, [2] is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, fire suppression, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A controlled burn may also refer to the intentional burning of slash and fuels through burn piles. [3] Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters.

Hydrogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogel

Aerogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

Water-based batteries have less fire risk FWIU

"1,000% Difference: Major Storage Capacity in Water-Based Batteries Found" (2023) https://scitechdaily.com/1000-difference-major-storage-capac...

The metal-free water-based batteries are unique from those that utilize cobalt in their lithium-ion form. The research group’s focus on this type of battery stems from a desire for greater control over the domestic supply chain as cobalt and lithium are commonly sourced from outside the country. Additionally, the batteries’ safer chemistry could prevent fires.

westurner7• 3 years ago

Hydrogel

From https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1572664456210948104 :

> What about #CO² -based #hydrogels for fire fighting?
> /? Hydrogel firefighting (2022) https://www.google.com/search?q=hydrogel+firefighting […]
> IDEA: How to make #hydrogels (and #aerogels) from mostly just {air*, CO², algae, shade, and sunshine,} [on earth, and eventually in space,]?

westurner7• 3 years ago

Water-based batteries have less fire risk FWIU

CAES Compressed Air Energy Storage and Gravitational potential energy storage also have less fire risk then Lithium Ion batteries.

FWIU we already have enough abandoned mines in the world to do all of our energy storage needs?

Could CAES tanks filled with air+CO² help suppress wildfire?

mrandish2• 3 years ago

That's a good list of useful links. From my experience as a home owner in a high-risk area, I'd add some of the things which can make a big difference are often surprisingly simple. In addition to managing your own land properly, make sure you have a large enough water tank to support firefighters in protecting your land. We got a well tank five times bigger than our typical usage needs. Another key thing is to put your tank next to where a fire truck can access it easily and get the proper adapter installed so the fire truck can direct connect to your tank (it's not included in most).

We also widened the access road on our property to support larger fire trucks and dozers. Obviously, fire-resistant construction materials and techniques are a huge help and not all require extensive retrofitting. There are spark resistant attic air access covers which are easy to install. We needed to re-roof and remodel anyway so we went with fire-resistant roofing and concrete siding. It's also important to have non-cellular local communications because the cell towers often go out first (our community uses 2-meter handsets for emergency comms). Doing those things along with the fact we've cleared all trees and brush out beyond 300 feet and only have metal out-buildings caused our local fire chief to comment that if everyone did what we've done, protecting the whole region would be three times easier. We also have enough generator power (on auto-failover) to pump our own well water to wet down our house and surroundings. With that our house has a really strong probability of surviving with no external help even if our property is directly hit by a major wildfire.

Edit to Add: I forgot to mention another key thing. If you live in a place like this, there's often only a single narrow public road serving your property and others nearby. Make sure you have transportation that'll let you get out cross-country if the road is blocked by either fire or heavy equipment. We have AWD ATVs fueled and always ready to go (plus they are handy around big properties like this). Between us and our neighbors we have a plan to get everyone on our road out without outside help - including a few elderly folk who will need assistance. Firefighters needing to rescue unprepared residents diverts vital resources from fighting the fire and clogs roads - which just makes everything else worse.

idiotsecant2• 3 years ago

Yep, you don't fight massive fires with whizbang technical novelties. In the context of fires big enough to matter the only tools in your toolbox that are sufficiently scalable are very low tech.

RandallBrown• 3 years ago

In the context of fires big enough to matter the only tools in your toolbox that are sufficiently scalable are very low tech.

Isn't that the whole point of this X Prize, to improve the tools available?

seltzered_• 3 years ago

Thanks for this comment. When reading the part where the xprize site says "especially in the expanding Wildland-Urban Interface, where homes, businesses, and major infrastructure are most at risk"

It reminded me of the excerpt from the film 'Tending the Wild' about California natives where one argues one needs to learn to 'smell the smoke': https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=42&v=Z-EXQ9be8mE&feature=you...

To me, this is more of a predicament around what our human expectations are and how to appropriately live, especially if populations are desiring to build settlement structures in ways that create wildlife urban interface.

hellotomyrars• 3 years ago

The access issue is huge and crosses over in to other issues (Inaccessible public land). I didn’t do wildland firefighting when I was a volunteer firefighter but the other people around talked about it a lot. There were areas that had to pay more to be served by neighboring agencies.

hedora• 3 years ago

All of these work better than suppression:

- Bury your power lines. If only PG&E would invest in fire safety… check list of funders in TFA… scratch head.

- Rake your forests. (Or “remove ladder fuels”, as it is now called.)

- Controlled burns.

I’d like my $11M now. Can we spend it on burying lines under an emergency order that bypasses California permitting?

defaultcompany• 3 years ago

"Raking the forest" while a totally viable approach in very specific strategic areas is just way way too expensive and time consuming in the general case. California has like 30 million acres of forest land. Removing brush from a single acre is a multi-day job with the right equipment. It just can't scale.

alfor• 3 years ago

This. In some place it’s the natural order to have forest fire from time to time.

If we prevent them long enough a huge one will happen at the worst time (dry, windy with lots of material to burn. At this point there very little you can do.

In the east cost there is rain regularly, so the usual thing is that wood, leaves rot instead, fires happen rarely.

xkfiebfifbek• 3 years ago

yep. xprize is a pile of money thay billionaires threw around to avoid taxes and get rockets... then forgot about.

some craft ong parasites infiltrated it and now it's a huge money maker for them. and they sell the prizes to anyone needing PR. did you just leaked oil near first world waters? let's do a xprize on oil clean up drones ny highschoolers!

the org chart is a bunch of VPs taking home a cool mi a year, with a bunch of sales person underneath (director of charity. director of giving. etc. look at their open positions page at any point in time. they churn these fast too.)

they will not focus on any meaningful result, like you outlined. only on the innovation as a cult PR.

for example, their rain forest one can be solved tomorrow by keeping the US out of couping countries with rainforest, if you were to trust data. but i guess that won't get the vote of a Hollywood actor or a swiss professor who literally have a course on using drones for ecology preservation.

devindotcom• 3 years ago

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.

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.

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.

pupppet• 3 years ago

Nothing like a video thumbnail of the entire planet on fire to make me question your intent.

gcheong• 3 years ago

Sponsored in part by PG&E a major cause of wildfires. Seems like a bit of deflection to me.

sam1r• 3 years ago

I wonder what format the winners’s submission would be. Maybe I’m missing something going through the website.

Would it be similar to that of a white paper? Or an actual demo. Or additional working detection hardware…

Under the past challenges, one mentions re-engineering a covid mask, so the end point is clear.

For this one, it feels much more open ended. Exciting, but I’m also quite curious, if anyone has an idea or examples.

jpgvm2• 3 years ago

Wildfires aren't really the problem on a global scale. They are a bit of a pain in Australia, and US West coast sure.

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.

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.

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.

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: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/

fwlr2• 3 years ago

Eh, I think they’re more than “a bit of a pain” in Australia. Bushfire season always kills a few people every year, but it’s only because of us taking fires very seriously and having defense in depth and early evacuation protocols that it doesn’t kill way more. There are cases like 2009 where more than 170 people died, which still may not sound like much for a population of 20 million, but it was mostly in the Kinglake and Marysville areas (roughly 100 deaths out of the area’s population of several thousand). It is a very grave risk with very serious mitigation efforts that largely work. If fire management and response were to break down even a little bit, though, the number of deaths will skyrocket. XPRIZE success on wildfires will be deeply appreciated here.

jpgvm2• 3 years ago

Yeah I grew up in rural Australia. I get why it would be useful.

Just travelling opened my eyes to much bigger fire problems is all. The pollution caused by slash and burn is estimated to cause ~11k deaths a year in Thailand alone, I imagine the numbers are much worse in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

I'm not saying I don't appreciate improvements in detecting and maybe preventing bush fires just trying to raise awareness of a larger more dangerous issue in the world that gets little to no attention because it's outside of Western media sphere.

barathr• 3 years ago

Unless I'm misreading this, it doesn't include passive fire mitigation approaches.

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:

https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21....

pwython• 3 years ago

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:

https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-rakin...

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.

tomrod• 3 years ago

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?

Buried utilities, thick brick walls, bunker designs, breaker areas around infrastructure, drone tech to identify and, if possible, cull tumbleweeds, etc.

mNovak• 3 years ago

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').

csh0• 3 years ago

Anyone interested in linking up to register as a team for either track?

“Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence

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.

Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response

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.”

I think these would be a fun problems work on. You can reach me at: Fire(AT)cynical.io

I don’t work in this space normally, currently I work as an SRE, but I am motivated. :)

pedalpete• 3 years ago

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].

He's tipped into the XPrize as well [2].

[1]https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shie... [2] https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips...

billclerico• 3 years ago

I’m a VC specializing in startups addressing wildfire. If I can be helpful to anyone thinking about this problem, I’m bill at convectivecapital.com

griffinkelly• 3 years ago

This reminds me of the competition to try and stop Asian carp from hitting the great lakes: https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/

I hope that's enough to generate some innovation in the area to solve a very large and growing problem.

baseline-shift• 3 years ago

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.

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?

davidbanham2• 3 years ago

Yeah a bunch. Satellite monitoring of lightning strikes has been happening for years.

We also have hot spot detection from himawari and other satellites.

Also very common to have aircraft do FLIR camera runs over the bush on high danger days.

A few startups/researchers are looking at distributed sensor arrays with microphones and thermometers to detect ignitions earlier. That’s mostly in plantation forestry at this stage.

There’s also some work being done to enable the thermal/linescan flights from drones rather than aircraft. Idea being to bring the cost down and thus coverage up.

ListenLinda• 3 years ago

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.

aerialcloud• 3 years ago

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.

xPrize Wildfire – $11M Prize Competition

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