|
|
|
|
|
5 June 2026
|
Technology: Aerial firefighting by swarm
|
|
FireSwarm has developed a technology to fight wildfires; military users might prove its capability. The founders of FireSwarm Solutions never saw themselves as a defence company. They were even warned by other startups the defence sector was a challenge to navigate. Better to steer clear of military sales and focus on their initial vision. But in a fortuitous twist, a company created to help fight forest fires after personal experience with a devastating wildfire is finding in allied defence users the potential accelerator for their civil business. FireSwarm, based in Squamish, B.C., was formed in late 2023 after a harrowing fire that summer in the Downton Lake region north of Pemberton destroyed two family properties of co-founders Alex Deslauriers and Melanie Bitner.
Residents along Gun Lake, who two years earlier had watched a fast-moving fire destroy the town of Lytton about 170 kilometres to the east, were forced to evacuate on short notice when winds shifted and a fire tore down the mountain, eventually forming a rare fire tornado, and leaving behind little more than the charred debris of approximately 56 homes.
“It literally had winds that were strong enough to rip out old growth trees from the property’s perimeter and throw them around like twigs,” recalled David Thanh, another co-founder and the company’s chief operating officer.
Deslauriers knew Thanh from Squamish Search and Rescue, a volunteer community-based organization where Thanh was co-chairing a search-and-rescue drone team. Knowing the roles drones were playing supporting searches, particularly at night, “why aren’t we fighting fires with drones?” Deslauriers posed to Thanh.
A fire warden with the B.C. Wildfire Service for over a decade and experience with United Nations and World Health Organization deployments, Thanh wasn’t aware of any drone that could transport enough water to make a meaningful difference against a large blaze.
Even a Robinson R44 light helicopter with a small Bambi bucket carrying 72 gallons (270 litres) would have minimal effect, he told Deslauriers. But a swarm of R44s, delivering a continuous flow of 270-litre buckets, especially at night when conditions are more conducive to firefighting—“now you have something,” they reasoned.
Discovering the ThunderWasp GT, a first-of-its-kind ultra-heavy-lift quadcopter built by ACC Innovation of Sweden, able to pick up and drop off up to 100 gallons (400 kilograms) of water, supported Deslauriers and Thanh’s concept of operations, and “that was kind of how FireSwarm was born,” said Thanh.
The company develops and integrates drone-agnostic software that enables dynamic mission planning for wildfire suppression and emergency response over complex terrain, pulling and reacting to data from onboard sensors, wildfire monitoring satellite constellations, and the sensor payloads on other drones or aircraft.
It has demonstrated the concept of a swarm of heavy-lift drones autonomously collecting and then dropping water on a fire at the edge of a forest, all being controlled by one operator and “monitored by a drone that picked up the heat signature of that fire and sent the coordinates to us,” said Thanh.
The company is among five finalist teams in the Autonomous Wildfire Response track of the XPRIZE Wildfire competition, a US$11 million contest intended to accelerate breakthrough technologies. Over the past year, FireSwarm and its partners, including ACC Innovation, have performed thorough field testing to demonstrate system integration and the technical readiness of the ThunderWasp.
While success in such competitions validates the concept and serves as an important stepping stone to commercialization, uptake by provincial governments, forestry services, and industrial sectors, for what Thanh acknowledged is an expensive platform, is the next bound.
Companies employing wildfire detection systems such as early detection cameras and sensors to identify potential threats to infrastructure like oil and gas pipelines are increasingly interested in options to quickly extinguish a small fire before it grows, but they want more real-world data.
“An oil and gas company wants to be sure that if they’re buying a multi-million-dollar system, it is effective, it’s been proven, and it has some statistics behind it,” he said. “You get back to that vicious cycle of, we need a way to be able to prove this out somehow, and to be able to get the uptake from the end user.”
Enter the military.
DIANA DELIVERS
In December 2025, FireSwarm was one of 150 companies from 24 countries selected for the NATO Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) 2026 program under its operations in extreme environments challenge.
DIANA was launched in 2022 as a way to encourage the adoption of dual-use technologies in cybersecurity, biotech, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, hypersonics, big data processing, and space. Critically, it bridges a gap between startups and militaries, bypassing the traditional technology procurement process occupied by large prime contractors.
The initiative is centered on three core pillars: A network of accelerator sites, test centres, and a strategic innovation fund to help ideas move from concept to deployment through mentorship, business development support, and access to defence and security experts.
“DIANA was a bit of a fluke for us,” Thanh admitted. “We knew it was going to be a tough competition process, but we were putting in applications for grants and for programs in many places, so this was just one [more].
“[No] accelerator program that we were involved in was ever the huge turning point in our company,” he added. “We didn’t know that’s what being named a DIANA Innovator was going to mean.”
Per the advice of others, FireSwarm was focused on civil applications, not military possibilities. But as political debate in Ottawa raised the threat of wildfires to a national security concern, and the federal government sent signals significant investments were coming in defence, and especially in drones, the company decided to throw its hat in the DIANA ring. (In March 2026, the Liberal government followed through with a $900 million commitment to the National Research Council of Canada for the creation of a drone innovation hub, with $500 million earmarked for aerospace and autonomous technologies.)
Two weeks before Christmas, FireSwarm learned they were among 150 technologies pulled from a record 3,680 submissions.
The company was assigned to a DIANA cluster in Latvia. Thanh said the travel commitment of one week every month for the next six months initially raised concerns, especially since “it was almost without knowing exactly what DIANA had to offer other than [it was] an accelerator program and will introduce you to other NATO countries.”
But by the third day of their initial engagement, it was clear DIANA could be a springboard like no other.
“Right there in those early meetings, we started building relationships with defence users and innovation stakeholders who understood the potential use cases,” Thanh explained. “They helped us think through how the technology could fit into operational concepts, what would need to be validated, and where the most practical applications might be. It quickly became clear that DIANA was not just an accelerator program. It was a way to get meaningful feedback from the people who actually understand the operating environment.
“It just grew from there. The excitement on their part—that this was not just any kind of solution, but a solution that could work in solving some of the problems they are facing—was definitely a pleasant surprise. In terms of accelerators, DIANA is an accelerator like no other, that’s for sure.”
MILITARY BREAKTHROUGH
The ThunderWasp has a payload of 400 kilograms, a maximum takeoff weight of 800 kg, and a top speed of around 90 kilometres per hour. With a full payload, it has 30 to 40 minutes of endurance, “depending on how much reserve fuel you want to leave,” said Thanh. “If you’re carrying a full load, we can go about 40 kilometres or so. If you cut the fuel or cut the load in half and increase the fuel, you can more than double that.”
Military users immediately saw the logistics applications for moving significant amounts of ammunition, food and fuel, and casualty evacuation in a battlespace where mined terrain threatens crewed and uncrewed ground vehicles, and surface-to-air and loitering munitions challenge helicopter operations.
FireSwarm showed how urgent logistics could be transported or wounded soldiers could be extracted with the ThunderWasp, launching autonomously and adjusting its route on the fly if necessary.
“[Our] innovation is not just getting an aircraft from point A to point B,” said Thanh. “It is giving operators the ability to manage complex missions as conditions change, while maintaining safety, oversight, and control. In emergency response and defence environments, that adaptability can be as important as the aircraft’s lift capacity.”
The aircraft is noisy and has a large thermal signature, he added, “so we can’t kid ourselves that it’s not going to be a target as we get closer to the front line. But for something that’s quick, like equipment transfer, it mitigates some risk.”
It also holds potential for navy ship-to-shore operations, transferring supplies via sling load.
“Technology is advancing quickly, and one of FireSwarm’s strengths is turning emerging operational needs into practical system designs,” Thanh said. “We work with defence users to understand the problem first, then assess how software, aircraft, sensors, and procedures can be integrated around that mission.”
As part of a dynamic cluster in Latvia, the company has a front row seat to what other innovators are showcasing, including kinetic weapons and other payloads, such as countermeasures for electronic warfare. Thanh said that exposure has helped FireSwarm better understand the broader defence innovation environment, while remaining focused on working with NATO users to understand their operational requirements before proposing specific applications.
“Those are things that we will consider as part of future integration work,” said Thanh. “[But] it’s always good to go in with a simple solution to test in scenarios, and right now the easiest and the simplest for us is to focus on practical mission profiles that can be tested, validated, and improved step by step.”
As much as possible, the company is designing for minimal disruption to current operating procedures. If personnel are already trained to support sling-load operations using established procedures, “we want the system to fit into those workflows rather than forcing people to learn an entirely new process,” Thanh explained. “For the person on the ground, the goal is that it does not really make a difference whether it is a drone or a helicopter coming in. The procedures should feel familiar, with the appropriate safety and control measures built around them.”
MAKING THE CIVIL CASE
Whether or not FireSwarm is selected by NATO DIANA for the second phase of the accelerator program, the company now has an important toehold with NATO.
“We were extremely fortunate we were able to build close relationships with allied defence users and receive direct feedback on where this technology could provide value,” said Thanh. “That kind of engagement is helping us understand the operational problems, refine the use cases, and work toward practical validation.
“Canada’s investment in defence innovation is significant, and it is encouraging to see that commitment translating into real opportunities for Canadian companies. Programs like NATO DIANA help bridge the gap between promising technology and operational capability by giving innovators access to testing, expert feedback, and defence users who understand the problem set. For FireSwarm, that is exactly the kind of environment where useful innovation can happen.”
That level of military engagement could also be the catalyst for civil firefighting applications. Among possible military applications is the prospect of employing the drone to manage fires on artillery ranges in theatre and in Canada.
“They constantly have a wildfire problem,” Thanh noted. “All their artillery fire testing results in fires on the ground. There is no easy way to put those out, which is why they build fire breaks [so they] just burn out. Because they have unexploded ordnance all over the place, they can’t just send in ground firefighters.”
With Canadian Armed Forces members deploying more frequently in recent years under Operation Lentus to support provincial calls for assistance battling wildfires, military use of ThunderWasp could help make the case for civil authorities and sectors like oil and gas.
“Fire scientists will be able to watch how we’re fighting wildfires for national defence,” he said. “[It could show] this is something that’s effective, it’s reliable, it’s not a maintenance-heavy device compared to the complexity of a helicopter. [This could] establish some of the parameters to put the civilian side at ease—that this is a good investment. Defence is at the moment more accepting of that risk, because they know they have to do something differently.”
Source: By Chris Thatcher, Skies Mag
Residents along Gun Lake, who two years earlier had watched a fast-moving fire destroy the town of Lytton about 170 kilometres to the east, were forced to evacuate on short notice when winds shifted and a fire tore down the mountain, eventually forming a rare fire tornado, and leaving behind little more than the charred debris of approximately 56 homes.
“It literally had winds that were strong enough to rip out old growth trees from the property’s perimeter and throw them around like twigs,” recalled David Thanh, another co-founder and the company’s chief operating officer.
Deslauriers knew Thanh from Squamish Search and Rescue, a volunteer community-based organization where Thanh was co-chairing a search-and-rescue drone team. Knowing the roles drones were playing supporting searches, particularly at night, “why aren’t we fighting fires with drones?” Deslauriers posed to Thanh.
A fire warden with the B.C. Wildfire Service for over a decade and experience with United Nations and World Health Organization deployments, Thanh wasn’t aware of any drone that could transport enough water to make a meaningful difference against a large blaze.
Even a Robinson R44 light helicopter with a small Bambi bucket carrying 72 gallons (270 litres) would have minimal effect, he told Deslauriers. But a swarm of R44s, delivering a continuous flow of 270-litre buckets, especially at night when conditions are more conducive to firefighting—“now you have something,” they reasoned.
Discovering the ThunderWasp GT, a first-of-its-kind ultra-heavy-lift quadcopter built by ACC Innovation of Sweden, able to pick up and drop off up to 100 gallons (400 kilograms) of water, supported Deslauriers and Thanh’s concept of operations, and “that was kind of how FireSwarm was born,” said Thanh.
The company develops and integrates drone-agnostic software that enables dynamic mission planning for wildfire suppression and emergency response over complex terrain, pulling and reacting to data from onboard sensors, wildfire monitoring satellite constellations, and the sensor payloads on other drones or aircraft.
It has demonstrated the concept of a swarm of heavy-lift drones autonomously collecting and then dropping water on a fire at the edge of a forest, all being controlled by one operator and “monitored by a drone that picked up the heat signature of that fire and sent the coordinates to us,” said Thanh.
The company is among five finalist teams in the Autonomous Wildfire Response track of the XPRIZE Wildfire competition, a US$11 million contest intended to accelerate breakthrough technologies. Over the past year, FireSwarm and its partners, including ACC Innovation, have performed thorough field testing to demonstrate system integration and the technical readiness of the ThunderWasp.
While success in such competitions validates the concept and serves as an important stepping stone to commercialization, uptake by provincial governments, forestry services, and industrial sectors, for what Thanh acknowledged is an expensive platform, is the next bound.
Companies employing wildfire detection systems such as early detection cameras and sensors to identify potential threats to infrastructure like oil and gas pipelines are increasingly interested in options to quickly extinguish a small fire before it grows, but they want more real-world data.
“An oil and gas company wants to be sure that if they’re buying a multi-million-dollar system, it is effective, it’s been proven, and it has some statistics behind it,” he said. “You get back to that vicious cycle of, we need a way to be able to prove this out somehow, and to be able to get the uptake from the end user.”
Enter the military.
DIANA DELIVERS
In December 2025, FireSwarm was one of 150 companies from 24 countries selected for the NATO Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) 2026 program under its operations in extreme environments challenge.
DIANA was launched in 2022 as a way to encourage the adoption of dual-use technologies in cybersecurity, biotech, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, hypersonics, big data processing, and space. Critically, it bridges a gap between startups and militaries, bypassing the traditional technology procurement process occupied by large prime contractors.
The initiative is centered on three core pillars: A network of accelerator sites, test centres, and a strategic innovation fund to help ideas move from concept to deployment through mentorship, business development support, and access to defence and security experts.
“DIANA was a bit of a fluke for us,” Thanh admitted. “We knew it was going to be a tough competition process, but we were putting in applications for grants and for programs in many places, so this was just one [more].
“[No] accelerator program that we were involved in was ever the huge turning point in our company,” he added. “We didn’t know that’s what being named a DIANA Innovator was going to mean.”
Per the advice of others, FireSwarm was focused on civil applications, not military possibilities. But as political debate in Ottawa raised the threat of wildfires to a national security concern, and the federal government sent signals significant investments were coming in defence, and especially in drones, the company decided to throw its hat in the DIANA ring. (In March 2026, the Liberal government followed through with a $900 million commitment to the National Research Council of Canada for the creation of a drone innovation hub, with $500 million earmarked for aerospace and autonomous technologies.)
Two weeks before Christmas, FireSwarm learned they were among 150 technologies pulled from a record 3,680 submissions.
The company was assigned to a DIANA cluster in Latvia. Thanh said the travel commitment of one week every month for the next six months initially raised concerns, especially since “it was almost without knowing exactly what DIANA had to offer other than [it was] an accelerator program and will introduce you to other NATO countries.”
But by the third day of their initial engagement, it was clear DIANA could be a springboard like no other.
“Right there in those early meetings, we started building relationships with defence users and innovation stakeholders who understood the potential use cases,” Thanh explained. “They helped us think through how the technology could fit into operational concepts, what would need to be validated, and where the most practical applications might be. It quickly became clear that DIANA was not just an accelerator program. It was a way to get meaningful feedback from the people who actually understand the operating environment.
“It just grew from there. The excitement on their part—that this was not just any kind of solution, but a solution that could work in solving some of the problems they are facing—was definitely a pleasant surprise. In terms of accelerators, DIANA is an accelerator like no other, that’s for sure.”
MILITARY BREAKTHROUGH
The ThunderWasp has a payload of 400 kilograms, a maximum takeoff weight of 800 kg, and a top speed of around 90 kilometres per hour. With a full payload, it has 30 to 40 minutes of endurance, “depending on how much reserve fuel you want to leave,” said Thanh. “If you’re carrying a full load, we can go about 40 kilometres or so. If you cut the fuel or cut the load in half and increase the fuel, you can more than double that.”
Military users immediately saw the logistics applications for moving significant amounts of ammunition, food and fuel, and casualty evacuation in a battlespace where mined terrain threatens crewed and uncrewed ground vehicles, and surface-to-air and loitering munitions challenge helicopter operations.
FireSwarm showed how urgent logistics could be transported or wounded soldiers could be extracted with the ThunderWasp, launching autonomously and adjusting its route on the fly if necessary.
“[Our] innovation is not just getting an aircraft from point A to point B,” said Thanh. “It is giving operators the ability to manage complex missions as conditions change, while maintaining safety, oversight, and control. In emergency response and defence environments, that adaptability can be as important as the aircraft’s lift capacity.”
The aircraft is noisy and has a large thermal signature, he added, “so we can’t kid ourselves that it’s not going to be a target as we get closer to the front line. But for something that’s quick, like equipment transfer, it mitigates some risk.”
It also holds potential for navy ship-to-shore operations, transferring supplies via sling load.
“Technology is advancing quickly, and one of FireSwarm’s strengths is turning emerging operational needs into practical system designs,” Thanh said. “We work with defence users to understand the problem first, then assess how software, aircraft, sensors, and procedures can be integrated around that mission.”
As part of a dynamic cluster in Latvia, the company has a front row seat to what other innovators are showcasing, including kinetic weapons and other payloads, such as countermeasures for electronic warfare. Thanh said that exposure has helped FireSwarm better understand the broader defence innovation environment, while remaining focused on working with NATO users to understand their operational requirements before proposing specific applications.
“Those are things that we will consider as part of future integration work,” said Thanh. “[But] it’s always good to go in with a simple solution to test in scenarios, and right now the easiest and the simplest for us is to focus on practical mission profiles that can be tested, validated, and improved step by step.”
As much as possible, the company is designing for minimal disruption to current operating procedures. If personnel are already trained to support sling-load operations using established procedures, “we want the system to fit into those workflows rather than forcing people to learn an entirely new process,” Thanh explained. “For the person on the ground, the goal is that it does not really make a difference whether it is a drone or a helicopter coming in. The procedures should feel familiar, with the appropriate safety and control measures built around them.”
MAKING THE CIVIL CASE
Whether or not FireSwarm is selected by NATO DIANA for the second phase of the accelerator program, the company now has an important toehold with NATO.
“We were extremely fortunate we were able to build close relationships with allied defence users and receive direct feedback on where this technology could provide value,” said Thanh. “That kind of engagement is helping us understand the operational problems, refine the use cases, and work toward practical validation.
“Canada’s investment in defence innovation is significant, and it is encouraging to see that commitment translating into real opportunities for Canadian companies. Programs like NATO DIANA help bridge the gap between promising technology and operational capability by giving innovators access to testing, expert feedback, and defence users who understand the problem set. For FireSwarm, that is exactly the kind of environment where useful innovation can happen.”
That level of military engagement could also be the catalyst for civil firefighting applications. Among possible military applications is the prospect of employing the drone to manage fires on artillery ranges in theatre and in Canada.
“They constantly have a wildfire problem,” Thanh noted. “All their artillery fire testing results in fires on the ground. There is no easy way to put those out, which is why they build fire breaks [so they] just burn out. Because they have unexploded ordnance all over the place, they can’t just send in ground firefighters.”
With Canadian Armed Forces members deploying more frequently in recent years under Operation Lentus to support provincial calls for assistance battling wildfires, military use of ThunderWasp could help make the case for civil authorities and sectors like oil and gas.
“Fire scientists will be able to watch how we’re fighting wildfires for national defence,” he said. “[It could show] this is something that’s effective, it’s reliable, it’s not a maintenance-heavy device compared to the complexity of a helicopter. [This could] establish some of the parameters to put the civilian side at ease—that this is a good investment. Defence is at the moment more accepting of that risk, because they know they have to do something differently.”
Source: By Chris Thatcher, Skies Mag