VIDEO/PHOTOS: It almost looks like a video game. But this technology – and these flames – are very real. A pallet fire was set on purpose, as part of a test conducted by students and faculty at the University of Maryland. The team of engineers designed a flying firefighter – a drone that can both detect and suppress wildfires before they get out of control. “These fires are becoming more intense,” Arnaud Trouvรฉ, professor and chair of the fire protection engineering department at the University of Maryland, told WMAR-2 News. “This uses less resources and less fuel just to actually get to the fire,” added Lindon Luu, a student at UMD studying to get his Masters of Science in fire protection engineering. They’ve dubbed the technology “Crossfire” and submitted it to a four-year, $11 million dollar competition called “XPRIZE Wildfire.” The contest tasks teams from around the world with developing new wildfire-fighting technologies.
