Our mission is to prevent destructive wildfires by scaling precise fuel treatment.
We're firefighters, scientists, engineers, prescribed fire practitioners, ecologists, and community members who are answering the call to scale fuel treatment capacity.
Prescribed burns at scale
BurnBot is a collaborator, fielding the best in forestry and fire technology to systematically scale wildfire mitigation and vegetation management services.
Our LeanRX approach brings together a system of technologies and operational practices specifically tailored to scale fuels treatment, with the goal of treating 1,000,000+ acres a year.
Increasing recognition of controlled fire emphasizes the use of more ‘good fire’ on public lands is resulting in new policy and development of workforces. These emerging policies have yielded long overdue recognition of the need for partnerships with tribal leaders to enhance existing knowledge and capacities for prescribed burning.
We can't just hire our way out of this problem
Vast need, low access
Tens of millions of acres require fuels treatment, and much of it is hazardous work, requiring a skilled workforce, that simply does not exist today. We need to 10X amplify our workforce capacity with technology so that the financial costs of maintenance treatment does not fall on landowners, many of whom are low-income, elderly, or disabled.
Prohibitive restrictions
Prescribed burns are restricted to short and fast-changing burn windows and have limitations based on terrain, ecology, and landscape conditions. Many landscapes require labor intensive “unit prep” before prescribed fire operations can safely occur, further inhibiting wide spread application of prescribed fire.
Complex processes
Fuels work, especially prescribed burns, require extensive pre-planning to identify sites, secure burn permits, obtain air quality permits, prep and segment units for safe fire operations and finally ensure liability coverage. All these processes introduce friction in scaling prescribed fire and fuels treatment programs.
Reversing fire/ecological debt with prescribed fire
Our modern fuel treatment system recognizes and supports conservation efforts with a clean, smoke-free process.
We need technology to amplify our workforces with targeted use of synthetic fire to treat fuel loads 10x faster than previously possible.
That's why we created BurnBot.
Our Team
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Dr. Anukool Lakhina - CEO
PhD Computer Science, founder & CEO of Guavus (acquired by Thales), co-founder of Wonder Labs.
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Dr. Waleed "Lee" Haddad - CTO
PhD Physics, 40+ patents, Lawrence Livermore Labs, Vermeer Corporation
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Simon Weibel - Head of Field Operations
Hotshot Firefighter, US Forest Service, Head of Fire & Sales Operations at Drone Amplified
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Brandon Dunham - Director of Business Development
11 years of fire experience on Hotshot & Helitack Crews, Creator of The Anchor Point Podcast, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters co-founding member
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Blake Cadigan - Director of Operations, CA
10+ years of forestry, fuels management, defensible space, heavy equipment, and wildland firefighting experience.
Our Advisors
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Phil Dye
20+ years in Rx Fire, RXB2 certified Burn Boss
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Jared Childress
Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association
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Sean Hendrix
30+ years forest restoration, Grayback Forestry Inc.
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Dr. Daniel Godwin
Fire ecology expert. Co-founder, Ember Alliance
Our Investors
BurnBot's investors include a community of citizen investors and venture firms Lowercarbon Capital, Convective Capital, ReGen Ventures, DCVC, Pathbreaker Ventures, Hike Ventures, Hawktail Ventures and Sur Ventures.