XPRIZE UF

High-Tech Solutions to High-Risk Wildfires

Wildfires like the ones that recently devastated Southern California burn an average of 7 million acres a year in the United States, taking dozens of lives and causing billions of dollars in damage.

While 2025 is off to a bad start, the 2020 wildfires are still the worst on record in the United States, consuming 10 million acres. That year, fires burned 4.3 million acres in California, where they killed 25 people, caused over $12 billion in damage and wiped out nearly 20 years of progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Only about 10% of wildfires are caused by lightning, but those fires are, on average, nine times larger because they can smolder for days until weather conditions become right for them to explode, says Istvan Kereszy, CEO and co-founder of Fire Neural Network, or FNN, a Gainesville-based company that is taking a high-tech approach to the problem.

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