Episode 218: Innovating Wildfire Response with XPRIZE with Jay Stalnacker, Denise Smith & Mike Cox

Episode notes

What is the XPRIZE Wildfire competition?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

We're hitting pause on our Texas Robotics Summit Mini Series right now to bring you an episode from FDIC...

In this episode:

How the XPPRIZE Wildfire competition incentives technology developers to solve the wildfire problem

Why are collaboration, engagement, and innovation key in addressing the wildfire problem?

What solutions protect communities and minimize risk to firefighters?

Hear from Jay Stalnacker - the Technical Lead for XPRIZE - Denise Smith - Professor and Director of First Responder Health and Safety Laboratory at Skidmore College - and Mike Cox - Director of Fire, Rescue & EMS Solutions at Esri .

These 3 thought leaders explore the forefront of wildfire technology. They discuss how success in the future includes minimizing risk to firefighters, managing forest health, and building resilient communities. They also talk about space-based detection and autonomous response innovations.

Watch the video podcast here!

Click play now to hear what they have to share! And stay tuned for the return of our Texas Robotics Summit Mini Series!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Kevin's intro: the XPRIZE Wildfire episode from FDIC 2024
2. 1:00 Jay Stalnacker on the XPRIZE Foundation and the two tracks
3. 2:54 Denise Smith on her new role and why the USFA is involved
4. 4:20 Mike Cox on Esri's involvement
5. 5:20 What the technology means for firefighters on the ground
6. 6:49 Innovation, collaboration and engagement
7. 7:22 The right data to the right person at the right time
8. 8:11 What is a destructive wildfire
9. 11:10 Good fire and bad fire
10. 12:06 What success looks like 10 years from now
11. 14:24 Expanding collaboration
12. 14:47 How to get involved and closing thanks

Questions answered in this episode

What are the two tracks of the XPRIZE wildfire competition?

Jay Stalnacker explains Track A is space-based detection, looking for satellite systems and AI that can identify fires early and provide almost instantaneous real-time feedback to firefighters on the ground. Right now they're looking at things like days and seven hours before they can get that information from space. Track B is autonomous response, using robots or unmanned aircraft to reduce unneeded risk to firefighters when conditions aren't safe to fly with a manned aircraft.

Hear it at 1:05

How does XPRIZE define a destructive wildfire?

Jay Stalnacker says a destructive wildfire is any fire that is not healthy for the ecosystem, not healthy for people, and not healthy for structures and infrastructure around it. He notes there is a place for good fire as part of natural disturbance, but destructive fires are unhealthy and unneeded.

Hear it at 11:10

Why is wildfire becoming a bigger problem beyond the West Coast?

Mike Cox points out that climate change trends mean wildfires will not stay a West Coast or Eastern Mediterranean problem. He cites the Gatlinburg fire in Sevier County, which was once a career event on the East Coast, but in a decade could become a once a month event without changes.

Hear it at 10:06

What does success look like for the XPRIZE wildfire initiative?

Jay Stalnacker envisions removing 99.9% of risk to firefighters caused by lack of information, delayed information, blind spots, and communication breakdowns. He wants wildland firefighters to have awareness matching military special operations and to be recognized as professional firefighters, not forestry techs.

Hear it at 12:33

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 218 transcript

Innovating Wildfire Response with XPRIZE with Jay Stalnacker, Denise Smith & Mike Cox

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Denise Smith, Jay Stalnacker, Mike Cox

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our Smart Firefighting podcast miniseries, hosted at FDIC 2024. Today, we dive into the latest advancements in wildfire technologies through the XPRIZE wildfire competition. We are joined by Mike Cox from Esri, Denise Smith from USFA, and Jay Stalnacker from XPRIZE. We discuss the innovative technologies in both the space-based detection track and autonomous response track that could revolutionize detecting and combating destructive wildfires. Stay tuned for XPRIZE updates at xprize.org slash wildfire as these solutions help reshape the future of wildland firefighting response. All right, we are officially live here at FDIC 2024 and I'm sitting next to a star-studded crew, Jay Stalnacker, Denise Smith, Mike Cox, who are all going to tell you a little bit about who they are and the exciting initiatives that we're talking about here with the XPRIZE Wildfire Initiative. Jay, start us off. What are we doing here? Tell me about yourself. Why are we here today?

[1:05] Jay Stalnacker: Let's avoid talking about myself. But we will talk about the XPRIZE Foundation. The XPRIZE Foundation is a nonprofit organization and what we try to do is incentivize technologies to solve some of the greatest problems in the world. And one of the problems we face collectively as firefighters and public safety and communities and industry partners like Esri, we really are facing this wildfire problem. So last year we launched the wildfire competition. It's a four year, $11 million competition with two tracks, Kevin. Track A is space-based detection. In other words, we're looking for satellite detection systems and AI that can basically identify fires early, quickly, and then provide almost instantaneous real-time feedback to the firefighters on the ground where they need it. And right now we're looking at things like days and seven hours before we can get that information from space. So yesterday we actually announced our qualifying advancing teams to the semifinal rounds in track A. So congratulations to those teams. I see one of the teams in the crowd here and it's exciting to see the technologies ahead of us. Really been a privilege there. Track B, Kevin, is one of my favorites. Not that we should favor any child in our family, but it's the autonomous response track. And this is the track that really, I think, that collectively here, we have a lot to talk about. For example, putting the firefighters at unneeded risk is a conversation that we manage every day as fire chiefs and fire managers. And if we can remove that unneeded risk, in other words, if we could send a robot or an aircraft, an unmanned aircraft, when the conditions aren't safe to fly with a manned aircraft, we could change the tactics on the ground, the strategies we're considering. So it's a game changer, and both of them will be.

[2:54] Kevin Sofen: So XPRIZE is kind of the tip of the spear here, and we're sitting alongside two, as I said, star-studded cast, amazing partners. But Denise, tell us about a little bit of who you are, your new role, and ultimately why the USFA is involved here.

[3:07] Denise Smith: Well, thank you for letting me be with you today. I'm Denise Smith. I have been a researcher in firefighter health and safety for many years, and I've recently accepted a new role with the United States Fire Administration, where I will be directing-

[3:20] Kevin Sofen: Snaps.

[3:22] Denise Smith: Where I will direct the data center and research division. And we are thrilled. We are thrilled with what XPRIZE is doing here. We understand. We feel just the impact that wildfire is having across our nation and in fact across the world. We're all aware of it. Many people are painfully aware of it. And so to be alongside people who are not just looking for awareness, not looking for the same old solutions, but for ways to address a problem that actually is forecast to become worse. We need to have the government playing its role. We need to have industry working with us. And we need to engage others. We need to engage the population at large to face what you identified as a really profound problem at the beginning. So I'm thrilled to be here.

[4:20] Kevin Sofen: Thanks, Denise. And my brother from another mother, Mike Cox. Tell us about your role and a little bit what Esri's involvement is.

[4:26] Mike Cox: Thank you, Kevin. And certainly I'm humbled to be here with this panel and in the presence of Kevin Sofen during our podcast here, but thanks for your time and coordination efforts. I am the director of fire and EMS for Esri, retired out of Virginia from a Metro size fire department, but again, humbled and proud to be a part of the XPRIZE process. We support them and actually have some members directly involved in this process. So we're very excited about it. Esri is taking a stance to help solve some of the world's most complicated issues, including this wildland-urban interface. I think it's completely appropriate that we're sitting in front of a damage assessment map from the campfire in Paradise in California, one of the more recent multi-fatality urban conflagrations. So we are certainly trying to help these agencies address that issue. We certainly want to be able to help some of the award winners moving forward, support them in their deployment of technology and practice and policy improvements to address these issues and just again proud to be here.

[5:20] Kevin Sofen: So thanks. And so one thing I want to dive into is sometimes within this technology adoption in the fire service. So it's a little bit maybe over the firefighter on the ground's head, the smokejumper's head, the fire chief's head in terms of what does that mean for me? How is this going to help me? And I'd love to kind of hear all your own perspective in terms of like what is the tech and ultimately what's the value and how is this value ultimately going to be communicated to actually benefit firefighters on the ground? Jay, you start?

[5:48] Jay Stalnacker: Sure. You know, I could go in so many directions with that, but I think the one that hits me mainly is, you know, the technologies that we're seeing, a lot of them exist today. And the key is, it is about new technologies and the garage mechanic and the innovator and their mad scientist lab. And we do have competitors like that, but we also have competitors that are in other industries and other fields that are repurposing solutions and technologies. And I think that's gonna be part of the winning team is a great quote from one of the teams yesterday was, it's a competition, but more importantly, it's a collaboration. And that struck me really good. Like, wow, even the teams are thinking that. And then here we have Esri, the US Fire Administration and XPRIZE, we're all sitting here together. And I think we offer a safe space for that innovation is where I'm driving. I also just wanna mention real quick, I think the piece that we really need and why we're here today is to get the firefighters involved. And so we could talk about that in a minute.

[6:49] Denise Smith: If I could just jump in, I love so much of what you said. We need innovation. This is a big, complicated problem. We need innovation, we need collaboration, and we need engagement. And how is it going to affect the firefighter? At multiple levels. It has a great deal to do with planning, being prepared with our resources, early detection, and then appropriate communication. But I'd like to actually just say we would issue an invitation for more collaboration with the fire service.

[7:22] Mike Cox: Excellent comments. I'll certainly echo those or support those. So we also think it'll impact the firefighter through a couple of ways. One is getting the right data to the right person at the right time. So early notifications using AI machine learning models to get ahead of the curve, to be able to have appropriate efficient resource deployment based on the use of technology. And also, it increases the safety of the firefighters in the field. So when we know what the conditions are, we're not dealing with that fog of war and the unknown while we're making our decisions. The more data we can provide to that firefighter, the better decisions they can make, right? The more verified data. Also, a safer environment because we understand the environment they're operating in. We can track them individually and understand where they are in the area of operation and hopefully keep them out of trouble. Or if they happen to get into trouble, be able to know exactly where they are and get the right resources to them as quickly as we can.

[8:11] Kevin Sofen: I want to take a 30,000 foot view for a second too to kind of set the stage on the magnitude of this problem. And I've heard you say this term, destructive wildfire. For those that maybe aren't impacted by wildfires or maybe they can see it on the news and they just kind of let the headline pass by and really think about it, I'd love to hear all your sort of definitions of what is a destructive wildfire? Maybe why and how has it got worse? And again, driving the importance of why this XPRIZE wildfire initiative exists?

[8:40] Jay Stalnacker: Yeah, again, I'll grab it in the context of, when I joined the XPRIZE Foundation, the competition had gone through quite a design phase, which I was very impressed with. There's a lot of research done in our competitions. It's not like, just let's grab some money and encourage people. We actually identified a host of problems in the wildfire arena. And because we are a technology organization, meaning wanting to bring technology to solve problems, made sense to focus on this. But in that context, Kevin, you know, there's all kind of challenges out there for us. But in reality, bringing this technology to the firefighter on the ground, as Mike said, in a way that is easy to understand and quickly assessable doesn't exist today. And it can change the landscape of what we do and how we do it.

[9:29] Denise Smith: When you talk about the magnitude of the risk, I think we have to understand that wildfire has always existed. But what we're really concerned with is wildfire impinging on homes and in fact on entire communities. There's been tremendous loss of life. There's tremendous loss of property and value to the country. And firefighters are placed at grave risk as they're... battling those fires. So the magnitude of the problem is quite grave.

[10:06] Mike Cox: Quite grave. I'll repeat that as well. And I'll say U.S. Fire Administration has taken a amazing approach in how to address it, you know, from a risk assessment side. So you can see some of the applications here are from the United States Fire Administration. There's a Wildland Urban Interface Vulnerability Explorer right next to us here. But as far as impacts, I want firefighters to consider that what we used to typically consider a West Coast problem in the United States or maybe Eastern Mediterranean overseas, it's not going to stay that way. So, I'm a Virginia firefighter. If we had 20 or 30 acres off, that was a second alarm for us, right, as a structural fire department. Of course, the fuel load is different. I can't get into all the tackle in this discussion. But when you look at climate change trends and what's going to look like two decades out or three decades out, Gatlinburg Fire in Sevier County, you know, you know, that moved through an urban area and took out hotels and those kinds of things, that was a once in a career event for them on the East Coast. That's not gonna be the case in a decade. That's gonna be a once a month event or if we don't make some changes, even more often having these significant impacts to our communities across the country.

[11:10] Jay Stalnacker: You know, Kevin, I'll just add, you know, I kind of went on my own tangent there earlier, but coming back to the word destructive wildfire, you know, as a fire manager, as stated, fire does have a good role And we call it at XPRIZE good and bad fire. And so for your definition of destructive fire, I think we've defined that somewhat, but it's any fire that is not healthy for the ecosystem, not healthy for the people, not healthy for the structures and infrastructure around it. And so there are any more, and I think you were touching on that, Mike, is any more, it's undefined what a destructive wildfire is other than the consequences after. So, you know, making sure that we understand that, at least from our foundation perspective, and I believe Esri and US Fire Administration shares this, there is good place for good fire on the ground. It's part of natural, you know, disturbance, but this is different, and this is unhealthy and unneeded.

[12:06] Kevin Sofen: So it's April 2024, we're here at FDIC, Thursday, the first day of the event, great energy, and it's really just exciting to see all the different technologies, you look around, there's so many things, but we're talking about XPRIZE, So talking about these wildfire challenges, track A, track B, 10 years from now, maybe 100 years from now, 50 years from now, what does success look like in all of your words, and if XPRIZE is successful, if blank, and what is ultimately the impact on the ground and then the different stakeholders?

[12:33] Jay Stalnacker: Oh gosh, Kevin, that's, you know, I have so many different emotions that actually bubble up when it comes to that, but, you know, my instinct goes to, you know, what it will look like, the end state, we call it in our world, right, the end state. end state to me is the almost removal, the 99.9% removal of risk to the firefighter on the ground due to actions that occurred because, as Mike said, lack of information, delayed information, blind spots we call them on the fire line, gaps in knowledge, communications breakdowns. All these problems are solvable. The technologies in front of us, why is it not making it to the wildland fire ground? I don't know. But in 10 years it will. And what we'll have is a firefighter that has an awareness that matches special operations in the military. And there's no higher risk to either one of those professions. And with that said, I'll say lastly, success to me is that firefighter, that wildland firefighter that has now minimized the risk, he or she is recognized as a professional and not a forestry tech, a professional firefighter. And I think that's another issue where we can help.

[13:49] Mike Cox: I'll add on to that in 10 years out, so Mike's world, 10 years out, right? We have appropriately managed the health of the forest, right? And so we're having less, these starts, and that includes the use of good fire, right? A little bit above my pay grade, but I'm catching up. But also appropriate codes that help us enforce things like defensible space or smart urban planning or in that in that urban interface that we have less of an impact and that move through it doesn't turn into an urban conflagration because we've appropriately built our resilient communities to be able to take that impact and minimize it or mitigate it. Thank you for that.

[14:24] Denise Smith: The one thing I'd like to say is I hope we are successful just as you've outlined and if I had a vision to add to that it would just be that we expand that sense of collaboration that will make this a success so that we can go to other areas of community planning, community engagement, so that we lessen the threat of fire in the US and the loss due to fire.

[14:48] Kevin Sofen: Jay, final thing for you. If people want to get involved, of course, XPRIZE is happening now and there's going to the judging process and all that. People want to get involved and follow along and get involved and collaborate. What's the best way to do that?

[15:02] Jay Stalnacker: Great. Obviously, XPRIZE wildfire

[15:05] Kevin Sofen: Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Firefighting podcast today. If you enjoyed what you heard and got any value out of it, please subscribe to our channel and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time. Bye. [inaudible 15:16] you heard and got any value, please drop us a rating, leave us a comment, or reach out to us on social media. Have a great day and together we can advance the future of smart firefighting.