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Apr
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2026
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Posted 3 hours ago ago by Admin
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As wildfires become faster, hotter and more unpredictable, the margin for error for aerial first responders shrinks every year.
To keep pace, the rotorcraft industry is turning to a new generation of technology—one designed to force-multiply human efforts while keeping pilots out of harm's way. Whether crewed, uncrewed, or a mix of both, here is how the latest-and-greatest tech is changing the face of aerial firefighting.
Airbus: Extending Reach with Drones
Known for its wide range of multi-mission crewed rotorcraft, Airbus Helicopters has developed a suite of light tactical drones (aka: uncrewed aerial systems or UAS) that can be used for firefighting. For instance, the company’s Aliaca drone can fly up to six hours with a 6.6-pound / 3-kilogram payload, while the Flexrotor can fly for more than 12-14 hours with a maximum payload of 17.6 pounds (8 kilograms). Meanwhile, Airbus’ Capa-X drone can carry a payload up to 44 pounds (20 kilograms) and can fly for 10 hours. The VSR700, which is based on the Guimbal Cabri G2 two-seater helicopter, has an eight-hour flight time and can carry a payload of 550 pounds (250 kilograms).
“All of our UAS can be equipped with ISR sensors, which make them very valuable to detect and monitor wildfires,” said Victor Gerin-Roze, Airbus Helicopters’ head of UAS. “The UAS can be used to locate and monitor a fire, providing long-endurance surveillance. It provides firefighters with the most up-to-date information, which is essential when fighting a fast evolving fire.”
Beyond imaging, Airbus’ drones can carry critical communication payloads, thus serving as radio relays or mobile cell-phone towers to bridge coverage gaps in remote terrain. “Looking forward, we even envision them serving as aerial ignition devices for controlled burn operations,” Gerin-Roze told Rotor Pro magazine. “The VSR700 can also be used for logistics missions typically carrying firefighting material to the responders on the ground.”
Drone Amplified: Fighting Fire with Fire
Drone Amplified makes drone-based tools for public safety, mainly in the fire and avalanche spaces. The company’s IGNIS is an aerial ignition payload that allows firefighters to conduct prescribed burns and "backburns" (fighting fire with fire) safely from the air. It does this by dispensing hundreds of small, ping-pong-ball-sized chemical spheres ("Dragon Eggs") filled with potassium permanganate. The IGNIS dispenser injects each Dragon Egg with antifreeze/ethylene glycol just before release. This creates a chemical reaction that causes the sphere to burst into flames seconds after it hits the ground.
“These small fires grow together to burn away brush and trees in a controlled manner, creating a barrier that stops an approaching wildfire,” said Dan Justa, Drone Amplified’s VP of business development. “Firefighters use it to drop a fireline for backburns and to provide overhead situational awareness with thermal cameras. Some of our users even use it to make thermal maps for hotspot tracking.”
Thermal Drop Lines - shot directly from the visible camera (main) and the thermal camera (top right). It shows the clean fireline the drone has dropped with thespheres. Credit is Drone Amplified.
Because wildfires and prescriptive burns take place in areas with little-to-no cell coverage, Drone Amplified has designed its drone-based systems to be usable off-grid with point-to-point radios and no cloud connectivity required. “In addition, new technologies like Starlink are being leveraged pretty heavily for those instances where the internet is required,” Justa said.
Rain: Attacking Wildfires Early
Rain, a company that develops aerial wildfire containment technology, is helping fire agencies suppress wildfires during the earliest stages of ignition. To do this, Rain adapts existing military and civil autonomous aircraft with equipment that can help their crews detect, analyze and suppress wildfires.
“At Rain, we're adapting autonomous aircraft for wildfire response,” said company CEO Maxwell Brodie. “Rain's wildfire mission autonomy software reduces pilot workload by enabling intent-level command for common tasks, including generating flight plans, picking up water, developing suppression strategy and dropping water.”
Since 2023, Rain and Sikorsky have worked together to show how a Black Hawk helicopter equipped with an 800-gallon+ water tank, Rain's wildfire mission autonomy software, and Sikorsky Matrix aircraft autonomy system can respond quickly to suppress or manage new wildfires.
Over the course of 24 hours of flight time, Rain and Sikorsky showed an end to end autonomous rapid initial attack in a real-world fire environment with real-time flight path adjustments to deliver water on live fire. The tests were performed in close collaboration with firefighters from the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District, who built and set fire to multiple brush piles for the aircraft to find and suppress with water.
“We are building our wildfire mission autonomy software to work alongside crewed aircraft, envisioning a future of uncrewed wildfire response aircraft teamed with human-piloted aircraft,” Brodie said. “The goal is to give firefighters options for managing wildfires depending on conditions and desired outcomes. We are looking forward to transitioning the technology into operational use with our fire agency partners.”
Robinson: Bridging the Gap Between Crewed and Uncrewed
Robinson Helicopter Company and its UAS subsidiary, Ascent AeroSystems, have developed a mix of crewed and uncrewed systems for aerial firefighting.
“The R66 helicopter, as well as the Spirit and Spartan UAS platforms, are aimed at aerial reconnaissance for firefighting intelligence as the primary use case, while the R88 helicopter has been developed for localized firefighting through water or fire-retardant drops,” said David Smith, president and CEO of the Robinson Helicopter Company. “Most of our helicopters are lighter weight aircraft with excellent capabilities as command-and-control or reconnaissance aircraft, but the R88 will be able to lift nearly 3,000 pounds of water through an external Bambi-bucket or integrated belly tank.”
According to Smith, several of Robinson’s long-term use cases involve collaboration between crewed and uncrewed helicopters to tackle fires in their early stages to reduce more widespread damage. To work towards such possibilities, “we have a long product roadmap of improvements and additions to our portfolio of capabilities in firefighting,” he told Rotor Pro. “It is safe to say that when the R88 reaches the market, we will have an entirely new array of aerial tools for firefighters to use to combat fires. Whether manned or unmanned, there will be a lot of collaboration between the two groups.”
Sikorsky: Heavy-Hitting S-70 Firehawk
When it comes to aerial firefighting, nothing beats the capacity of a crewed helicopter.
Take the Sikorsky S-70 Firehawk; it comes equipped with a 1,000-gallon (3,785-liter) water tank, retractable snorkel, twin-turbine engine, and night vision capability. As such, “Firehawk helicopters play a key role in responding to the most challenging wildfires and all-hazard emergencies,” said Kate Grammer, Sikorsky’s S-70 Firehawk sales lead.
A Sikorsky S‑70 FIREHAWK ® helicopter responds to the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires, Jan. 2025. Photo courtesy: Greg Doyle.
The Firehawk’s capabilities were displayed in April 2025, when Sikorsky and Rain staged a joint demonstration to California fighters. Held in wildfire terrain east of Los Angeles, Sikorsky flew its optionally piloted Black Hawk helicopter with safety pilots on board. Integrated with Sikorsky’s MATRIX flight autonomy system was Rain’s wildfire suppression planning software.
A ground operator with a tablet launched the aircraft, directed the aircraft to a water source, and filled the 324-gallon Bambi Bucket attached to a 40-foot line. The aircraft then searched for the fire and calculated the flight path to accurately drop water onto a small wildfire.
"The technology that Rain and Sikorsky is demonstrating is a powerful part of the ecosystem of advancing fire service technology that is answering the year-round fire seasons we’re facing throughout California,” said Chief Dan Munsey, San Bernardino County Fire District. “Autonomous aircraft—both crewed and uncrewed—can increase flexibility and capacity for on-the-ground incident commanders.”
Today, 28 manned Firehawk helicopters are deployed across California and Colorado. The Czech Republic is buying two Firehawk aircraft, marking the first international sale of the aircraft.
Skydio X10: Seeing Through Smoke
The Skydio X10 is a robust, adaptable drone built specifically for public safety applications, including firefighting, law enforcement and emergency response.
The Skydio X10's FLIR Boson+ thermal sensor allows firefighters to see through smoke, identify hotspots, and locate individuals in dangerous and hard-to-reach places. It can be deployed in under 40 seconds, and provides shareable real-time videofeeds using 5G broadband wireless. The Skydio Dock for X10 is an autonomous docking station that can be positioned to deploy the X10 remotely, in 20 seconds or less.
“Skydio recently added a new addition to our drone fleet, the R10,” said Jason LaFond, the company’s customer success manager for public safety. “The R10’s compact size makes it easy to carry and quick to navigate in tight indoor spaces, such as searching a collapsed building or assessing an indoor hazardous materials leak.”
Boston Fire, Tulsa Fire, Nashville Fire, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, Orange County Fire Rescue (Fla.), Tallahassee Fire Department, and Southern Manatee County Fire & Rescue are some of the departments currently using Skydio drones to assess fire size and spread before responders arrive, to identify hotspots during operations, and to provide live updates and streaming video to command centers during these incidents.
A case in point: During Hurricane Milton’s sweep through Florida, a critical oil facility suffered significant damage, with a floating roof tank collapsing and releasing flammable gasoline vapors invisible to the human eye. “However, with a Skydio X10 drone equipped with a high-resolution thermal imaging camera, it can be easily seen,” LaFond said. “This is why Rich Gatanis, Firefighter/HazMat/UAS specialist with Southern Manatee Fire & Rescue, used Skydio drone technology to safely inspect the damaged infrastructure and evaluate the site's condition while livestreaming the operation.”
UAV Navigation: Precision Control in Denied Environments
UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía focuses on advanced guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) solutions for drones. Its systems are designed to perform in all flying environments, including adverse weather and regions where GPS signals are being jammed.
“Our flight control system has been engineered to meet the extreme demands of firefighting operations,” said Miguel Manrique, the company’s flight control engineer and rotary-wing solution lead engineer. “At the heart of the solution is our VECTOR autopilot, a high-performance GNC system that delivers precise navigation and platform stability even in smoke, high temperatures, and turbulence. A key strength is seamless integration with payloads like high-resolution electro-optical cameras and thermal sensors. This enables camera-guided navigation, where the autopilot automatically directs the aircraft to coordinates detected by onboard sensors. Our flight plan generator also incorporates an autogrid function to automatically generate optimized coverage patterns.”
UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía’s flight control system is being used by the Spanish Emergency Military Unit (UME). It uses drones such as the Alpha Unmanned Systems A800 helicopter, which operates using UAV Navigation’s VECTOR autopilot. “Beyond Spain, our technology has been deployed in Central Europe during Czech-German firefighter training exercises, where the Primoco One 150 fixed-wing UAV played a key role,” Manrique said. “This demonstrated how long-endurance UAS can complement piloted rotary-wing assets.”
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