Pelletized Water for Aerial Firefighting: A Collaboration with Rain

This team of Stanford Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students partnered with Rain, a Bay Area startup pioneering a wildfire intelligence network for autonomous aircraft, to improve the efficacy of aerial firefighting. As the frequency and severity of forest fires continue to escalate, it is imperative to manage their deleterious risks to human health and the environment through enhanced suppression efforts.

Traditional aerial firefighting methods suffer from significant inefficiencies, with up to 45% of water volume lost to atomization and evaporation during drops. Thus, our mission is to maximize the delivery of a water payload to a targeted drop zone. We have achieved this by developing a beta version of a manufacturing process that produces water pellets that can survive helicopter flight conditions, burst on ground contact from a targeted drop height, and naturally biodegrade. Our pellets exhibit a predictable spread rate and concentrated delivery with no
atmospheric losses, rendering them an effective tool for combating wildfires from the sky.