Wildland firefighting drones are being tested in B.C.

Alex Deslauriers and Melanie Bitner's home was one of 56 properties destroyed by the Downton Lake wildfire two years ago. 

A fire tornado — a combination of extreme fire intensity, lower humidity and a low dew point —  swept through the community of Gun Lake, about 61 kilometres north of Pemberton, B.C., in August 2023, during Canada's most destructive fire season on record. 

A working aerospace engineer, Deslauriers started brainstorming innovative ways to fight wildfires, to prevent others from a similar fate. 

LISTEN | A Canadian company is innovating a wildfire defence mechanism:

On The Coast9:34A Canadian company is innovating a wildfire defense mechanism

The 2023 fire season in Canada was the most destructive on record. But Two B.C companies are working on developing a drone to combat the province's wildfires. We talk to the CEO of FireSwarm Alex Deslauriers, and the CEO of Strategic, Domenico Iannidinardo.

"There has to be something that can be done with the technology available today," Deslauriers thought to himself following the fire.

Along with David Thanh, a former B.C. Wildfire warden and Bitner, a communications expert, the trio co-founded Fireswarm Solutions — a Canadian company that, once testing is done, aims to supply heavy-duty drones to first responders. 

Known as Thunder Wasp drones, these quad-rotor drones UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, are built by Swedish aerospace company ACC Innovations.

According to Bitner,  ACC innovations manufactures the drones and the heavy-lift platform that they take flight from and return to, while FireSwarm makes the drones "fire-ready" by attaching sensors with AI swarm algorithms that are well known in defence. 

The main difference between a Thunder Wasp drone and a regular recreational-use drone is the heavy lifting capability. 

The lifting capacity is 400 kilograms, and the drones can fly for two hours. Three Thunder Wasp drones can lift 1,200 kilograms. According to the B.C. Wildfire Service, a medium-sized helicopter can lift 1,100 – 1,600 kilograms.

When deployed and ready to fly, the drones measure 3.5 by 3.5 metres. Deslauriers says that drones are most useful during the night when wildfires can intensify and pilots are not able to fly. 

"We are addressing a need that is unmet at this point," Deslauriers said.

FireSwam is working with the Strategic Natural Resource Group, also known as Strategic, an emergency response management firm, to test the drones' ability to fight wildfire in B.C. over the course of the wildfire season. 

Strategic, the largest Indigenous-owned natural resource consultancy in Western Canada, has a long-standing relationship with the B.C. Wildfire Service — deploying extra firefighting crews when needed for the past 20 years, said CEO Domenico Iannidinardo.

In an email to CBC News, the B.C. Wildfire Service said it is observing the testing to see if the drones could, in future, be used in a provincial wildfire response.

The testing is being done in the Squamish Valley. Iannidinardo says the drones are able to bucket water autonomously, dropping it off on a marked X. 

The B.C. Wildfire Service said these specific Thunder Wasp drones are not being used for wildfire response anywhere else in the world. 

"No one is addressing the problem the way we are, using heavy lift drones and installing sensors to suppress fires," Deslauriers said.

"It's a complete out-of-body experience to be honest. To be faced with a problem two years ago, to be able to bring an amazing team together and get to this point," 

Deslauriers and Iannidinardo say they aim to have the drones approved and in service for the 2026 wildfire season in B.C.