Meet the Future of Autonomous Wildfire Response: XPRIZE Wildfire Announces Finalist Teams Advancing in $11M Competition

PR Newswire

$750,000 Awarded Across Autonomous Teams to Advance their Drone and AI Coordination Solutions

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- XPRIZE, the world's leader in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions to solve humanity's grand challenges, in partnership with co-title sponsors Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, today announced the five finalist teams advancing in the Autonomous Wildfire Response Track of XPRIZE Wildfire, an $11 million global competition incentivizing the innovation of firefighting technologies. The finalists were announced today at an event hosted at PG&E's headquarters in Oakland.

The announcement comes just after the one-year anniversary of the devastating Los Angeles area wildfires, which claimed more than 30 lives, forced evacuations of over 200,000 people, displaced nearly 100,000 residents, and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and businesses, making it one of the most costly wildfires in U.S. history. With the scale, speed, and complexity of wildfires now exceeding what traditional human-driven systems can handle, there is a growing need for adoption of AI and autonomous technology in wildfire prevention.

Competitors in the Autonomous Wildfire Response Track are developing fully autonomous solutions to detect and suppress a high-risk fire in 10 minutes or less over a large, environmentally complex area roughly the size of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose combined while avoiding decoy fires—a challenge that has never been tackled at this scale and scope before. These technologies have the potential to transform how fires are detected, managed, and fought, with a rate 4x faster than current best practices and shortening the time between detection and rapid response, minimizing negative impacts.

"Globally, wildfires are becoming more frequent, more intense, more unpredictable, and more destructive," said Andrea Santy, XPRIZE Wildfire Program Director. "The technologies being developed by these finalist teams offer meaningful solutions with the potential to fundamentally change how we detect, respond to, and ultimately prevent catastrophic wildfire events."

In late 2025, the XPRIZE Wildfire operations team conducted in-field testing with 13 Autonomous semifinalist teams, each demonstrating the capabilities of their system. These systems integrated AI-driven detection, autonomous drone navigation, real-time sensing, and automated suppression, along with evaluations of scalability and operational readiness. The resulting finalist solutions move beyond concept, showcasing autonomous drones and AI-coordinated systems capable of mapping, assessing, and responding to wildfire threats in real time, even in harsh environments, offering a glimpse into the future of wildfire management.

The finalist teams come from diverse backgrounds, ranging from defense organizations and seasoned AI experts to high school students, demonstrating that breakthroughs can emerge from anyone, anywhere.

The five Autonomous finalist teams are:

• Anduril (USA) - Anduril's modular Lattice software platform automates the data integration and tasking of fixed Sentry autonomous sensing towers and aerial Ghost-X autonomous drones to enable real-time wildfire detection through machine learning, predictive modeling, precision location alerts, and early aerial suppression. Lattice ensures that the wildfire response platform is inherently scalable and software-defined, allowing users to easily add additional sensing and response platforms to the broader network to vastly increase the area that can be monitored.
• Data Blanket (USA) - Data Blanket provides a rapidly deployable autonomous drone swarm system that enables instant wildfire detection, real-time perimeter mapping, actionable intelligence for incident commanders, and targeted early-stage suppression to reduce escalation.
• Dryad (Germany) - Dryad's Silvanet is a large-scale, solar-powered sensor network that uses embedded AI to detect wildfires as early as the smouldering stage, triggering autonomous Silvaguard drones to confirm fire locations and deliver targeted early-stage suppression.
• FireSwarm Solutions (Canada) - FireSwarm Solutions in partnership with Solaris Suborbital, Trident Sensing, Exo Drone and SenseNet offers an autonomous, drone-agnostic wildfire detection and suppression platform that uses infrared sensing and swarm intelligence to localize fires in real time and coordinate ACC Innovation ultra-heavy-lift drones for precise, autonomous suppression missions.
• Wildfire Quest (USA) - Valley Christian High School's team, in partnership with SensoRyAI and Kaizen™ Aerospace, uses a network of AI-enabled multi-sensor detectors to precisely triangulate wildfires in their incipient stages—with or without line-of-sight— and a proprietary path-planning algorithm to autonomously guide heavy-lift suppression drones through dynamic environments for accurate detection and response.

The XPRIZE Wildfire Judging Panel awarded equal portions of a $750,000 prize purse to the five finalist teams for demonstrated technical readiness across core areas: autonomous end-to-end wildfire response systems, smart detection, autonomous navigation and safety, autonomous suppression, and a scalability assessment of their system. Semifinals live trials took place in situ around the world and were captured by testing partner Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) in the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.    

In the summer of 2026, Autonomous finalist teams will compete in a final testing round in Alaska, where they will be tasked with demonstrating autonomous systems that can detect and fully suppress a high-risk fire in a 1,000 km² test zone within minutes while leaving decoy fires untouched.

Space-Based Finalists also Advancing
In July 2025, XPRIZE and PG&E announced 10 finalists in the Space?Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence track, representing six countries.

In Track A, 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. These teams will compete in finals in April in Australia in partnership with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. 

PG&E Named Impact Phase Sponsor
To accelerate real-world adoption of these technologies, PG&E is continuing its support of XPRIZE Wildfire as the competition's Impact Phase Sponsor, committing more than $1 million in funding and in-kind support. The Impact Phase focuses on field trials, technology evaluation, and knowledge sharing to help bring winning solutions into operational use, particularly in high-risk wildfire regions.

"PG&E remains unwavering in our stand that catastrophic wildfires shall stop. The breakthrough technologies and innovators driving progress in XPRIZE Wildfire have the potential to transform community protection, strengthen support for first responders, and bring us together in serving our planet," said Sumeet Singh, Pacific Gas and Electric Company Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, Energy Delivery. "PG&E is proud to support advancements in this critical area of technology development and looks forward to the testing and impact phase with finalists across both tracks of the XPRIZE Wildfire competition." 

PG&E and XPRIZE invite others to join in moving from solution to development. Sponsors and potential pilot project host partners are encouraged to reach out. 

"Wildfires are escalating in both frequency and intensity, and addressing this challenge requires bold, evidence-driven solutions," said Genny Biggs, program director of the Wildfire Resilience Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. "The teams advancing in the XPRIZE Wildfire competition are translating research and innovation into real-world tools that can strengthen resilience for communities and ecosystems alike."

At the end of the competition in Q3 2026, a winning team in each track will have the opportunity to receive $3.5 million. A $1 million bonus prize, sponsored by Lockheed Martin, may be awarded to one or more eligible teams participating in the Autonomous Wildfire Response track whose competition entries successfully demonstrate the most accurate, precise, and rapid detection.

XPRIZE Wildfire is offered in partnership with Co-Title Sponsors Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and PG&E, Presenting Sponsor Minderoo Foundation, Bonus Prize Sponsor Lockheed Martin, and Supporting Sponsors Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Costa Navarino, American Family Insurance, Fairfax Financial, the Roddenberry Foundation, and several generous individual sponsors.

For more information, please visit www.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.

About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than sixteen million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com, pge.com/news and pge.com/innovation.

About Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. Visit Moore.org or follow @MooreFound.

SOURCE PG&E