Wildfires are not just a problem in the U.S.; it is a worldwide hazard, and one that could highly benefit from robotics.

There are already some excellent robotic technologies being developed for addressing wildfires, residential and commercial fires:

• A hybrid intelligent wildfire detection system by Insight Robotics LTD of Hong Kong that was successfully tested by the Guangdong Academy of Forestry and will be implemented throughout the Guangdong province in China.
• The Thermite firefighting robot manufactured by Howe and Howe Technologies
• FireRob, the MVF-5 Autonomous Firefighting Robotic Vehicle built by the Croatian manufacturer DOK-ING
• The autonomous OLE robotic firefighting beetle created at the University of Magdeburg-Stendal
• Firefighting robot scouts with 3D thermal imaging recently developed by the Coordinated Robotics Lab at the University of California, San Diego
• Octavia, a social, cognitive robot, part of a research project at the U.S. Navy’s Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR)
• The annual Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest