{"id":249147,"date":"2026-07-20T21:55:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T21:55:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:55:52","slug":"firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighting drones in the works as wildfires plague US nearly year-round"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Drones capable of spraying water and fire retardants have been practicing how to snuff out wildfires early in California and Alaska this summer\u2014demonstrating a possible rapid-response tool for firefighting as <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tag\/climate-change\/\">climate change<\/a> transforms wildfire season into a nearly year-round risk for much of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Most drones are significantly smaller than crewed aircraft and have shorter flight ranges, meaning they cannot replace large airtankers in delivering massive payloads of water or other fire-suppressing payloads to remote wildfires. But companies and fire agencies\u2014along with organizers of the $11 million XPRIZE competition\u2014are testing whether drones can help firefighting crews respond more quickly to small fires and put them out before they become more destructive.<\/p>\n<p>The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CAL FIRE, ran its own field test involving five autonomous drones that worked together to deploy between 500 and 1,000 gallons of foam combined for suppressing fires on July 15, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/kmph.com\/news\/local\/calfire-tests-autonomous-drones-to-bolster-wildfire-operations-in-california\">TV station KPMH<\/a>. The demonstration was organized with the help of the nonprofit FireWERX and the California-based <a href=\"https:\/\/seneca.com\/\">company Seneca<\/a>, which is making the drones commercially available starting in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/ai\/2026\/07\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/ai\/2026\/07\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wpematico_credit\"><small>Powered by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wpematico.com\" target=\"_blank\">WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drones capable of spraying water and fire retardants have been practicing how to snuff out wildfires early in California and Alaska this summer\u2014demonstrating a possible rapid-response tool for firefighting as climate change transforms wildfire season into a nearly year-round risk for much of the United States. Most drones are significantly smaller than crewed aircraft and have shorter flight ranges, meaning they cannot replace large airtankers in delivering massive payloads of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":0,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Firefighting drones in the works as wildfires plague US nearly year-round - UshopWell.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Firefighting drones in the works as wildfires plague US nearly year-round - UshopWell.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Drones capable of spraying water and fire retardants have been practicing how to snuff out wildfires early in California and Alaska this summer\u2014demonstrating a possible rapid-response tool for firefighting as climate change transforms wildfire season into a nearly year-round risk for much of the United States. Most drones are significantly smaller than crewed aircraft and have shorter flight ranges, meaning they cannot replace large airtankers in delivering massive payloads of...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UshopWell.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-20T21:55:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"UShopWell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"UShopWell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"UShopWell\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6fd1f9e0ff932e534c86c70d5acff0fc\"},\"headline\":\"Firefighting drones in the works as wildfires plague US nearly year-round\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-20T21:55:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":202,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round\\\/\",\"name\":\"Firefighting drones in the works as wildfires plague US nearly year-round - 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