Strategic Celebrates World Engineering Day

Engineering the Future of Wildfire Response

FIRST RESPONSE

Every year, as climate change intensifies wildfire seasons, the UN estimates that 100 million hectares of forest are lost to fires. Canada-based Strategic Natural Resource Group (Strategic) is helping with the emergency wildfire response, thanks to its pioneering efforts with Uncrewed Aerial Fire Suppression (UAFS), a drone-centered system that assists firefighters on the ground and in piloted aircraft.

Strategic has partnered with wildfire technology startup FireSwarm Solutions Inc. and ACC Innovation to test firefighting drones capable of carrying a heavy payload across Canada’s rugged terrain, where early wildfire suppression is vital.

“If you can detect a wildfire early and act on it quickly, your odds of containing it are infinitely better. Engineering innovations like UAFS make wildfire response faster, safer, and more effective,” says Domenico Iannidinardo, Strategic CEO.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

Strategic is a leading natural resource consultancy and management firm, founded in 2003 as a small forestry enterprise in British Columbia. Today, it operates across Western Canada with a team that has expertise in deploying technology hardware and software in the field at the front line of natural resource development and emergency response. Advice spans policy, environmental issues, resources, infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and risk management.

In 2022, Strategic’s longtime client, the Ehattesaht First Nation, joined the organization as a majority owner, making it the largest Indigenous-owned natural resource consultancy in Western Canada.

FIRE READY

Many wildfires start on steep terrain that is too dangerous for ground crews and fixed-wing water-bombing aircraft to access. UAFS technology offers communities in these remote areas an automated, dispersed firefighting facility – that is, a future of self-operating drones as part of a system that can detect, monitor, and suppress fires quickly.

The technology is easier to maintain and nimbler to deploy than centrally managed teams. Drones can also fight fires at night, a hazardous time for firefighters and crewed aircraft pilot.

In 2019, the Ehattesaht First Nation (Ehattesaht) faced a wildfire on inaccessible land that threatened their community on Vancouver Island. “Having UAFS nearby would have helped reduce the scale of the damage,” says Simon John, Ehattesaht Chief. “We are proud to support the development of UAFS technology by helping manufacturers test these systems in real-world scenarios, so that it may help hundreds of communities over time.”

WHAT DOES A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

Alongside managing forests responsibly and assisting Indigenous communities with technology, Strategic focuses on SDG 13, to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. With more than two decades of forestry stewardship and experience of wildfire resiliency and suppression to draw upon, the company is perfectly placed to achieve this goal.

“The scale of emissions from forest fires is enormous,” says Iannidinardo. “If a community with access to this modern technology and the UAFS approach can curtail a wildfire by a factor of days, it’s preventing thousands of tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere.”