XPRIZE Wildfire Names Teams Advancing in Global Competition to End Destructive Wildfires
This milestone comes as destructive wildfires intensify globally, prompting urgent action from world leaders. Recent commitments from the G7 and other international bodies have recognized wildfire as a growing threat, while a new
"Wildfires are growing more frequent, more destructive, and more costly, and the status quo is no longer sustainable in a changing climate," said
Two Tracks of Innovation: Semifinalists and Finalists Announced
XPRIZE Wildfire teams from around the world are competing to innovate a wide range of technologies in two complementary tracks designed to transform how wildfires are detected, managed, and fought. The competition's esteemed panel of judges – composed of wildland firefighting, technical experts, and wildfire researchers – assessed each team's ability to meet the demanding criteria of each competition track:
- Finalists - Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence: In this track, teams have one minute to accurately detect all fires across a landscape larger than entire states or countries, and 10 minutes to precisely characterize and report data with the least false positives to decision-makers on the ground.
- Teams participated in Semifinals Technical Verification to assess their analytical capabilities and showcase their ability to quickly, accurately, and precisely report and share insights on predetermined wildfire targets, reporting all observed wildfires and false positives using historical Earth observation data.
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11 teams from 5 countries
advanced to the next phase of the competition as Finalists.
The Judging Panel awarded a total of$300,000 between six of the advancing teams in recognition of the distinct data analytic capabilities their systems demonstrated during the semifinals. - Semifinalists - Autonomous Wildfire Response: In this track, teams have 10 minutes to autonomously detect and suppress a high-risk fire in a 1,000 km2, environmentally challenging area, leaving any decoy fires untouched.
- Technical Verification required that competing teams submit written and video demonstrations as evidence that their technologies are capable of fully autonomous wildfire detection, navigation, safety systems, and informed suppression.
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15 teams representing 7 countries
were selected from a pool of global registrants to advance to the next phase of the competition as Semifinalists. Teams will be eligible to receive portions of a
$750,000 milestone award depending on their performance during testing.
Teams were recognized during the Esri Safety and Security Summit in
"Technology at its best is a force multiplier for good, and wildfire is exactly the kind of global challenge that demands bold, collaborative technological innovation. The teams advancing in XPRIZE Wildfire are proving that we don't have to accept destruction as inevitable," said Dr.
Over the coming months, the XPRIZE Wildfire operations team will travel to each Autonomous Semifinalist team location for in-field testing. Teams will physically demonstrate their autonomous end-to-end wildfire response system, including smart detection, autonomous navigation and safety, and autonomous suppression, along with an overall technical readiness and scalability assessment of their system. These live trials will be captured by the testing partner, the
In
XPRIZE Wildfire is offered in partnership with
"At PG&E, we are committed to ending catastrophic wildfires, and within our service territory we have implemented mitigation initiatives that provide layers of protection. We work closely with innovators to adapt and adopt tools and technologies giving us new data, insights, visibility and capabilities to prevent fires and when necessary, limit their spread and size," said
"We are inspired by the creativity and ingenuity the XPRIZE competitors are bringing to this big and urgent challenge," said
"At Lockheed Martin, we're committed to harnessing the power of innovation to address some of the world's most pressing challenges, including the growing threat of wildfires," said
At the end of the competition in 2026, the winning team in each track will receive
Full lists of semifinalist and finalist teams can be found at xprize.org/wildfire.
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE is the recognized global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity's greatest challenges. For over 30 years, our unique model has democratized crowd-sourced innovation and scientifically scalable solutions that accelerate a more equitable and abundant future. Donate, learn more, and co-architect a world of abundance with us at xprize.org.
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