Over two weeks in June 2026, finalist teams deployed autonomous systems in rural Nenana, Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks, in partnership with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Their challenge: rapidly detect, locate, and suppress wildfire ignitions without human intervention—demonstrating a future where destructive wildfires can be stopped before they spread beyond control.
The tests evaluated each system’s speed, accuracy, autonomy, and suppression effectiveness under realistic field conditions. Finalist solutions integrate technologies including artificial intelligence, autonomous aircraft, advanced sensors, robotics, and novel suppression approaches.
The Autonomous Wildfire Response Track is one of two tracks within the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition, which aims to revolutionize how humanity detects and combats destructive wildfires.
Testing for Track A, Space-Based Detection & Intelligence, concluded in New South Wales, Australia, in April.
Follow along as we share the latest developments from finals testing.
- VIP Day: A Front-Row Seat to Wildfire Innovation
- Testing Day #3: Inside Team Dryad's Technology & Approach
- Meet the Experts Evaluating XPRIZE Wildfire
- Testing Day #2: Inside AURA Foresight's Technology & Approach
- Why Nenana?
- Testing Day #1: Inside Anduril's Technology & Approach
- Meet the Finalist Teams
- Why Alaska? The Challenge Behind XPRIZE Wildfire Finals Testing
- What to look for
July 01, 2026 | 1:36 pm PST
VIP Day: A Front-Row Seat to Wildfire Innovation
Innovation doesn't happen in isolation. It requires innovators, researchers, policymakers, funders, and end users to see the technology firsthand and have the conversations that move it forward.
That was the purpose of the XPRIZE Wildfire Autonomous Wildfire Response Track VIP Day.
Hosted in Fairbanks and Nenana, Alaska, the event brought together leaders from philanthropy, industry, government, academia, and wildfire management to experience Finals Testing firsthand. Guests were welcomed by University of Alaska Fairbanks Vice Chancellor for Research Dr. Laura Conner and Dr. Catherine Cahill, Director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI), whose partnership helped make autonomous flight operations possible throughout the competition.
Throughout the day, guests observed finalist teams as they evaluated integrated autonomous wildfire response systems designed to detect, locate, verify, and suppress incipient wildfires. Rather than viewing individual technologies in isolation, attendees systems operating in realistic outdoor conditions, demonstrating how sensing, artificial intelligence, autonomous aircraft, and suppression technologies can work together.
XPRIZE Founder and Executive Chairman Peter H. Diamandis and XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari emphasized that the technologies being evaluated represent an important shift for wildfire response. The conversation is no longer centered on isolated concepts but on increasingly integrated systems designed to help firefighters respond faster and more effectively.
That message was reinforced by Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, former U.S. Fire Administrator, who described the event as "a genuine inflection point in how humanity responds to wildfire." Reflecting on the week, she noted that wildfire is no longer simply a fire problem but one that intersects with public health, infrastructure, and national security. She also emphasized that while autonomous technologies are advancing rapidly, policy, procurement, and operational standards must evolve alongside them to enable deployment at scale.
The event also featured conversations with XPRIZE Wildfire sponsors, including representatives from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Lockheed Martin, sponsor of the $1 Million Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize, highlighting the critical role that public and private investment plays in advancing wildfire innovation.
VIP Day served as a reminder that solving wildfire will require more than breakthrough technology alone. It will require collaboration across research, industry, philanthropy, government, and the wildfire community to ensure that promising innovations can move from testing environments into operational use where they are needed most.
June 30, 2026 | 12:15 pm PST
Testing Day #3: Inside Team Dryad's Technology & Approach
Dryad's approach to autonomous wildfire response starts before there is anything to see. Rather than relying on cameras or satellites, which depend on visible smoke or heat, the system is built around Silvanet, a network of solar-powered sensors that detect the combustion gases a fire emits during its earliest smoldering phase, well before flames develop. Connected through a wireless mesh network, the sensors continuously monitor for these subtle chemical signatures.
This head start is what makes everything downstream possible. Once a potential ignition is identified, an autonomous Silvaguard Observation Drone is dispatched to geolocate the fire using infrared imaging, distinguishing genuine threats from false alarms and delivering precise coordinates for the next phase.
Following verification, an autonomous Silvaguard Suppression Drone delivers suppression while remaining connected to the network. This is only viable because the fire was caught early. A drone can extinguish an incipient fire but not an established one, so ultra-early detection is not a convenience, it is the condition that keeps suppression within reach.
By combining persistent gas sensing with autonomous verification and suppression, Dryad's technology reflects a layered approach in which each stage depends on the speed of the one before it. Catching fires in their first minutes is what turns autonomous suppression from an aspiration into a realistic response.
June 29, 2026 | 2:52 pm PST
Meet the Experts Evaluating XPRIZE Wildfire
The technologies competing in XPRIZE Wildfire are ambitious, but so is the process used to evaluate them. Our judges bring together expertise from across wildfire operations, geospatial science, aviation, emergency response, and autonomous systems to assess which solutions are ready to make a real-world impact.
As finalists advance through the competition, each solution is evaluated against rigorous judging criteria by an independent panel of experts. Their diverse backgrounds help ensure technologies are assessed not only for technical performance, but also for their potential to support firefighters, emergency managers, and communities facing the growing threat of wildfires.
The XPRIZE Wildfire judging panel includes leaders from government agencies, wildfire response organizations, research institutions, the aerial firefighting industry, geospatial technology, and emergency communications. Together, they bring decades of practical experience and a shared commitment to advancing the future of wildfire management.
Interested in learning more about the experts evaluating XPRIZE Wildfire? Visit our Judges page to explore the experience and expertise of the professionals helping evaluate the next generation of wildfire technologies.
June 29, 2026 | 11:35 am PST
Testing Day #2: Inside AURA Foresight's Technology & Approach
If you've been following along, you'll remember AURA Foresight joined the finalist roster only weeks before Finals Testing. Rather than seeing that as a limitation, the team embraced it. Their approach to Finals Testing in Alaska centered on integrating commercially available hardware with AI-powered software to create a scalable autonomous wildfire response system. Team co-lead Rob Vernon described it as the "Home Depot approach," bringing together proven, off-the-shelf technologies into a unified solution.
AURA Foresight's system combines AI-powered wildfire detection, autonomous drone swarm coordination, and precision suppression using commercially available hardware. Rather than relying on specialized platforms, the team integrates off-the-shelf technologies with intelligent software designed to detect, locate, verify, and respond to wildfire ignitions.
The system begins with AI-powered camera detection sites mounted on elevated boom lifts that continuously monitor the landscape for signs of smoke. Each site combines readily available cameras, generators, power management, and communications hardware connected through the Fire Foresight platform. When a potential ignition is identified, the system estimates the fire's location using ray casting and digital elevation models before refining the location through triangulation. A DJI Mavic is then dispatched to investigate, using thermal cameras, laser range finding, and AI image processing to distinguish active fires from decoys. Once the fire is confirmed, AURA Foresight's swarm coordination software manages a fleet of DJI M400 and DJI M300/M350 aircraft, coordinating the autonomous suppression response.
Built around low-cost, readily available hardware and AI-powered software, AURA Foresight's approach emphasizes scalability, interoperability, and rapid deployment. By combining existing technologies into a coordinated system, the team demonstrates how autonomous wildfire response can be built using accessible tools without sacrificing sophisticated coordination.
June 28, 2026 | 1:30 pm PST
Why Nenana?
Selecting the right testing site was as important as the technologies themselves. Located just outside Nenana, Alaska, the Finals Testing site was situated at the Nenana Municipal Airport, where the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI), performs flight operations and whose team safely managed the surrounding airspace throughout the competition. Their proximity and expertise made it possible to evaluate the wide range of types of aircrafts many different autonomous aircrafts being assessed in a challenging outdoor environment.
Throughout the week, one idea surfaced again and again: Alaska provides an optimal testing ground. Interior Alaska's vast landscapes, limited road access, changing weather, and remote terrain create many of the same logistical challenges wildfire responders face around the world. The testing site, located along the Nenana-Totchaket Road corridor, provided a large, sparsely developed landscape where autonomous systems could be evaluated under conditions representative of the environments they are designed to serve.
Nenana has long played an important role in Alaska's history. During the 1925 Serum Run to Nome, it served as the railhead where the life-saving diphtheria antitoxin was transferred from train to the sled dog teams that carried it west, including the relay led by the famed Balto. Today, the town is also home to the Nenana Ice Classic, a tradition dating back to 1917 in which participants predict the exact moment the ice on the Tanana River will break each spring. Together, these traditions reflect a community shaped by Alaska's landscape, seasons, and the challenges of life in the Interior.
June 27, 2026 | 1:30 pm PST
Testing Day #1: Inside Anduril's Technology & Approach
Anduril's approach employs an integrated wildfire response system that fuses persistent ground-based sensing, autonomous aerial surveillance, AI-powered decision-making, and coordinated suppression through its Lattice Fire software platform. Rather than relying on a single asset, the system connects a network of first and third-party autonomous sensors, effectors, and response platforms into a unified response pipeline — from first detection through confirmed suppression.
The system begins with a layered detection architecture. On the ground, Anduril's Sentry Tower provides continuous, persistent monitoring of the surrounding landscape using onboard MWIR sensors, edge computing, and computer vision to detect and classify potential ignitions. Simultaneously, third-party VTOL aircraft are dispatched to establish wide-area aerial surveillance across the operational environment. Aircraft equipped with third-party Trident sensor payloads provide a persistent bird's-eye view of the area, scanning high-risk terrain at scale, while aircraft carrying optic sensor payloads leverage thermal imaging and onboard computer vision to detect, geolocate, and confirm fires from the air. Together, the Sentry Tower and VTOL aircraft fleet form a layered, multi-domain detection network — combining ground-based persistence with aerial reach to eliminate coverage gaps caused by terrain masking, canopy obstruction, or line-of-sight limitations.
Detection data from all sensors flows into Lattice Fire, where it is fused, correlated, and verified in real time to produce a single, high-confidence common operating picture. Once an ignition is validated, the closest Ghost-X aircraft is autonomously tasked to respond. The Ghost leverages its onboard MWIR sensor to confirm the fire's precise location and characterize conditions en route, adapting its approach while in flight. Upon reaching the target, the Ghost delivers its suppression payload — fire retardant balls — with precision, while detection assets continue to monitor the fire's behavior and flag any spot fires for follow-on response.
By integrating persistent ground detection, wide-area aerial surveillance, AI-enabled decision-making, and autonomous suppression into a single coordinated system, Anduril demonstrates how a connected network of autonomous platforms can compress the wildfire response timeline from hours to minutes during the earliest and most critical stages of an ignition.
June 26, 2026 | 12:40 pm PST
Meet the finalist teams
Finals testing is now underway, with finalist teams in Alaska putting their autonomous wildfire response systems to the test. In rural Nenana, Alaska, teams are being challenged to monitor a vast area for 8 hours and rapidly detect, locate, and suppress up to three controlled incipient stage wildfires without human intervention.
Meet the three finalist teams bringing their approaches to the field:
Anduril – AI-powered sensor fusion and autonomous aircraft designed to rapidly detect and respond to incipient wildfires.
AURA Foresight – Ground-based sensors, artificial intelligence, and autonomous drones combined in a Detect–Verify–Act approach designed to identify and suppress fires at their earliest stages.
DRYAD – “Internet of Trees” technology using a network of ultra-early detection sensors designed to identify wildfire threats during the smoldering phase.
Together, these finalist teams represent a range of new approaches to wildfire response, including artificial intelligence, autonomous aircraft, advanced sensors, robotics, and novel suppression methods.
This year’s finalist field also reflects the adaptive, collaborative spirit of the competition. AURA Foresight has rejoined the competition following a finalist spot opening, bringing together two former semifinalist teams from the UK and Australia under one name. Their addition reflects a core idea behind XPRIZE: breakthrough solutions are not always built in a straight line. Sometimes, they come from innovators willing to adapt, combine strengths, and move faster together.
Follow along as we continue sharing updates from Finals testing and a closer look at the teams and technologies working to shape the future of wildfire response.
June 18, 2026 | 4:17 pm PST
Why Alaska? The Challenge Behind XPRIZE Wildfire Finals Testing
When lives depend on technology, it needs to be tested in rugged, real-world environments.
That’s why finalists in the XPRIZE Autonomous Wildfire Response Track were brought to Alaska’s interior.
The finals testing site is located near Nenana, Alaska, offering something increasingly difficult to find: a vast, open landscape where cutting-edge systems can be challenged at meaningful scale. The remote location allows teams to operate across a large competition area while minimizing many of the ground hazards that can come with testing closer to populated communities. Testing in this remote region allows us to demonstrate and evaluate these technologies for remediating technologies before moving into areas into the wildland-urban interface (WUI) which have higher human populations.
Testing this kind of innovation comes with real challenges, but Alaska provides the scale, conditions, and sparsely populated areas needed to push these systems closer to real-world readiness.
Alaska's boreal forests and natural fuels share characteristics with many other wildfire-prone regions around the globe. The landscape also bears visible reminders of past fire activity and the state also understands wildfire risk firsthand. In 2025 alone, Alaska experienced a wildfire season that burned an estimated 1.68 million acres. That’s roughly double the state's 10-year average. While many of those fires occurred in remote areas, they still created significant impacts across ecosystems and danger to communities.
During finals testing, teams must monitor a vast area, rapidly detect incipient fires, accurately locate fires, and autonomously deploy suppression systems all while avoiding false positives and operating safely in changing environmental conditions.
Alaska provides the scale necessary to evaluate whether these systems can perform under those demands.
The location also brings its own unique challenges. Teams must contend with unpredictable weather, long distances, rugged terrain, and abundant wildlife. These factors create additional layers of complexity that autonomous systems must overcome.The site's remoteness is difficult to appreciate until you experience it firsthand. Located near Nenana, about an hour southwest of Fairbanks, the testing area sits at the edge of Alaska's vast interior. The area is not far from the location made famous by Into the Wild, offering a glimpse of just how vast and undeveloped this part of Alaska remains.
Beyond the competition area, the land stretches for miles with little sign of development. The scale of the landscape is a reminder of both Alaska's natural beauty and the challenge of protecting remote areas from wildfire. When a fire starts in a place like this, detection, response time, and access can make all the difference.
In addition to the real-world testing environment, the decision to test in Alaska brought the competition to University of Alaska Fairbanks and ACUASI (the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration) test range. ACUASI’s decades of test expertise was essential and made these advanced tests possible.
Ultimately, Alaska wasn't chosen simply because it is remote. It was chosen because it offers the scale, conditions, and operational challenges necessary to answer a critical question: Can autonomous systems help stop wildfires at the incipient stage?
June 11, 2026 | 10:25 am PST
What to look for
Last week marked the beginning of the pre-deployment windows for teams participating in the XPRIZE Wildfire Autonomous Wildfire Response Track in Alaska.
Teams are currently arriving, unpacking their gear, surveying the testing site, and strategizing their deployment.
Official testing is set to commence on June 15.