XPRIZE, a non-profit organization that designs and operates large-scale incentive competitions, announced awardees across both tracks of XPRIZE Wildfire, an $11 million global competition launched in 2023 to accelerate development of firefighting technologies.
Sponsored by PG&E and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as well as Minderoo Foundation and Lockheed Martin, the competition challenged teams across two complementary tracks: Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence and Autonomous Wildfire Response.
“Destructive wildfires are becoming more extreme, costly and difficult to manage, making faster, more effective approaches increasingly urgent,” said Andrea Santy, XPRIZE Wildfire Executive Program Director. “These teams pushed the boundaries of what is possible today, demonstrating meaningful advances in wildfire detection and response while helping identify where continued innovation is needed to move these technologies toward real-world deployment at scale.”
The Wildfire & Resilience Strategy Summit at DTECH brings together utility leaders, emergency preparedness professionals, technology providers, and industry partners to strengthen strategies for wildfire, extreme weather, and the growing risks affecting grid reliability.
Previously held as the standalone Reliability & Resiliency event, this dedicated summit is now part of the DTECH experience. Whether you are advancing wildfire mitigation, strengthening emergency response, improving situational awareness, hardening infrastructure, or planning for long-term resilience, the summit offers a concentrated forum for insight, collaboration, and action.
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Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence
Track A challenged teams to utilize space-based observation data synthesized with artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect, characterize, and report wildfires.
XPRIZE awarded $1.05 million across five Track A teams, recognizing advances in space-based wildfire detection and intelligence. Judges recognized progress in multi-sensor system integration, detection methodology, commercial readiness, operational capabilities, and algorithms. The results also helped identify key technical gaps that should be addressed to enable more reliable, real-time wildfire detection from space, XPRIZE said.
- 1st Place – System Integration Awardee, $500,000: SIRIUS Wildfire Alliance
SIRIUS Wildfire Alliance demonstrated comprehensive end-to-end and system integration methodology, integrating SAR and optical data to support fire characterization and spread modeling. - 2nd Place – Methodological Innovation Awardee, $250,000: Team Snuffed
Team Snuffed developed a probabilistic data-fusion framework designed to provide transparent, auditable, and uncertainty-aware wildfire detection, with “strong firefighter-facing usability.” - Special Recognition, Commercial Viability, $100,000: MyRadar
As a commercially mature team, MyRadar utilized upstream satellite acquisition and demonstrated spatial precision. - Special Recognition, Operational Deliverable, $100,000: DeepFire
DeepFire demonstrated an operational fire-spread-alert capability designed to support wildfire detection and intelligence. - Special Recognition, Innovative Algorithm Application, $100,000: Mayday.AI
Mayday.AI applied an algorithm originally developed for volcanic-ash detection to identify wildfire smoke plumes through cloud cover.
“When Minderoo backed this challenge, we set a clear goal: find fires faster and give firefighters better information,” said Minderoo Foundation’s Dr. Andrew Forrest AO. “Earlier this year, the finalist teams put their technologies to the test in real-world conditions alongside the NSW Rural Fire Service. Innovation only makes a difference when it works where lives, livelihoods and landscapes are on the line. These teams have shown what is possible.”
Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response
In June 2026, autonomous wildfire response competitors tested their solutions in the Alaskan wilderness. Teams were challenged to autonomously detect and completely suppress a high-risk fire within 10 minutes of ignition across 1,000 km² of terrain, without disturbing nearby decoy fires.
The XPRIZE Wildfire Judging Panel awarded $3.5 million across three Track B Finalist teams:
- First Place Awardee, $1.2 Million: Anduril Industries Anduril’s modular Lattice software platform provided an integrated detection-to-suppression integrated pathway for unifying cameras, sensors, and drones.
- Second Place Awardee, $800,000: Dryad Networks Dryad’s Silvanet, a 170-sensor persistent field network, combined with their Silvaguard drones, demonstrated end-to-end autonomy.
- Third Place Awardee, $500,000: AURA Foresight AURA successfully demonstrated autonomous and persistent detection, meeting the “critical” 10-minute detection gate.
The Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize of $1 million was awarded to Anduril Industries for its multi-sensor detector performance.
“We are proud to be the Impact Phase Partner of XPRIZE Wildfire, supporting innovators developing breakthrough technologies that can transform how wildfires are detected and addressed in the critical early moments when every second counts,” said Mark Quinlan, Chief Safety Officer and Senior Vice President, Wildfire, Emergency and Operations, PG&E. ” Protecting our customers and the hometowns we serve from wildfire risk is one of PG&E’s most important responsibilities. Over the past several years, we have strengthened our wildfire prevention approach through multiple layers of protection and mitigation, but we know there is always more work to do. We are grateful for our partnership with XPRIZE and the innovators participating in XPRIZE Wildfire. Together, we can help bridge the gap between innovation and deployment and accelerate solutions that will enhance safety for all facing the threat of wildfire.”
The competition will now move into a 12- to 15-month impact phase focused on helping translate emerging technologies from both tracks into deployable solutions for real-world wildfire management.
“From the beginning, our hope for XPRIZE Wildfire was to change what is possible in the fight against destructive wildfires,” said Anousheh Ansari, Chief Executive Officer, XPRIZE. “The progress we are celebrating now is an important step, but the true impact of this competition will be measured by what happens next. We hope to see these innovations utilized by communities and responders to detect and address fires sooner, creating a future where fires can be detected and addressed before they become destructive.”
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