141–150 of 163 posts
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The Australian bush needs fire to germinate new plants and trees too.
But not too often. we are losing forests because a second fire is coming through before the first generation of trees reached maturity. Once that happens, there is no coming back.
If you look at recent California fires, those with single initiating events occurred under very high wind conditions (> 100kph sustained) which would make drone flight impossible. Besides, such events spread to several acres within minutes of initiation. Dropping a few water balloons will do absolutely nothing. Other major incidents has enormous numbers of initiating events. Leading up to the CNZ complex, there were…
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Lofty ideas, supported only by hope. They're a startup. That's what startups do. If you think they're wasting their time you're really on the wrong website right now.
Most startups fail. Declaring any one a waste of effort is statistically justified. Alternative reason to read HN: a sadistic desire to watch people fail, and say that I told you so.
IMO very few startups fail entirely. Plenty don't get to the point where they make a profit, and fewer still make a return for their investors, but there are lots of other things startups do that can be considered successes.
For most startups failing is an event that comes at the end of a long journey filled with successes. It would be wrong to only consider the last step.
The reason we have such terrible fires now is that we keep putting out fires when they're small. Nature builds up too much burnable matter over time. Small fires would burn it in small, localized areas. But if the small fires don't happen then we get the massive fires that destroy towns, cities, and cost lives. I am not impressed by a new way to put out small fires, because that just ensures bigger fires in the long…
One of the biggest problems with managing bushfire in Australia is having the fire "jump the line". Where embers fly ahead of the main fire, starting spot fires that unless dealt with just extend the reach of the fire. Currently a lot of spot fire management is attempted using helicopters with water buckets, but this is both expensive and bloody dangerous. Being able to use semi disposable drones could assist dramati…
It's also a big problem with pine forest fires. The trees and their cones explode and when combined with the generated heat, the fire can jump over a three or four lane road in an instant. That creates spreading and accelerating fires which can go on for days and burn extremely big areas down.
We had a similar fire around a decade ago in a region that I go yearly, and it was a sad view to say at least. Kilometers of road under the shadow of trees were barren, black/brown mountains covered with ash and other unpleasant things. The region is healing by itself and help from forest services and volunteers, but it shows that keeping fires small is very hard.
I was involved with the Caldor fire near Lake Tahoe, California. That fire had a massive line put in for days, but a big wind caused multiple ignitions behind the line at night. The wind and the night prevented aircraft from flying. But drones like these could have flown. And they could have managed the tough terrain. And they could have suppressed the spot fires beyond the line, and helped that line to hold. And that would have meant potentially saving a city. Don't get me wrong, South Lake Tahoe survived due to hard work and a lot of luck, but as we know entire cities are burning and the loss of that line wiped entire neighborhoods off the map. These machines need to be scaled up to handle significant suppression requirements — something far bigger than these drones capable of helping hold a line and work in difficult conditions. I don't think small drones are it. But precision delivery, and the fact that you get immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the suppression from the drone, could be really incredible.
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It's a nice effort, but not terribly practical. They can't have the drones performing surveillance over wild lands for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a crashed drone could start a fire. They also make noise that can disturb wildlife and humans enjoying the wilderness. Plus, they're a ready made platform for dropping stuff from the drone, so immediate military and terrorist uses.
High altitude, long endurance drones with long range IR sensors to detect flames. Use solar panels and high power density batteries and it could fly around for months. BAE has a HALE UAV that can run for a whole year at high altitudes (PHASA-35). Use a wide angle IR camera for course detection and a zoom camera for identification. Images and location telemeters down to forest ranger base stations. It wouldn't be chea…
I think that's a good idea, since in general fires start when the sun shines.
The reason we have such terrible fires now is that we keep putting out fires when they're small. Nature builds up too much burnable matter over time. Small fires would burn it in small, localized areas. But if the small fires don't happen then we get the massive fires that destroy towns, cities, and cost lives. I am not impressed by a new way to put out small fires, because that just ensures bigger fires in the long…
No, the reason why the fires are so terrible is because we build way too fucking close to forests. When your house is a couple hundred meters away from a forest that's prone to catch fire, say goodbye to your house in case of a large forest fire.
We need to stop encroaching on nature so hard when building settlements, just like our ancestors did - they respected that nature needs distance from humans. Not just because of fires, but also because of pandemics, landslides, floods, hurricanes, storms... nature is dangerous, no matter how technologically advanced we become as a species - it seems as if humanity has gotten a bit megalomaniac in that regard, and we are all paying the price each year for that. And it's not going to get better, only worse with how climate change has increased the severity of extreme weather events.
Alternatively: make it clear to people that in the case they want to live in a fire-prone area, they have to protect (e.g. invest in deep underground water tanks for a powerful sprinkler system) and insure themselves. There will be no public investment or action in firefighting for areas designated fire-prone. Why should firefighters have to risk their lives for people who knowingly built houses in a fire-prone area?
But given that heat rises, I wonder how effective it would be against bigger fires. Maybe if it had a little side-launch capacity it could be even more capable?