A remote-controlled BurnBot RX1 prototype produces a containment line during a prescribed burn in Paicines, California.
Photographer: Philip Pacheco/Bloomberg
Robots Are Starting (Good) Fires in California
BurnBot’s tank-like robot helps manage wildfire risk by conducting controlled burns with no open flames, minimal smoke and much less manpower.
Cody Chiverton has spent the past decade lighting fires. As a former firefighter with the US Forest Service, he participated in dozens of prescribed burns across the American West, in which fire-prevention teams would carry drip torches to ignite dry vegetation, leaving flames and smoke in their wake.
But in June, Chiverton did a prescribed burn with no flames and no smoke. Instead, a tank-like robot pulled by a remote-controlled tractor handled all of the igniting. As it slowly moved along a hiking trail near Palo Alto, California, the robot turned anything in its path — brush, dry grasses, leaf litter — into a dark trail of ash.