Wildfires no longer have a season; fires are burning longer, spreading faster and costing more. Fires in remote areas can rage for hours before anyone calls for help.
Franco Rodriguez dropped out of college in Buenos Aires to build a solution. He claims his startup Satellites on Fire can detect wildfires up to 35 minutes before NASA.
Satellites on Fire tracks wildfires using satellites and ground cameras, updating every five minutes, and sends alerts to responders on WhatsApp or SMS. Last year it covered 21 countries and helped manage more than 600 fires.
“Fire departments, timber companies, national parks – they find out about wildfires because people call 911. In remote areas where there are no people, no one gets to know. That’s why they get catastrophic,” Rodriguez told ImpactAlpha.
The company closed a $2.7 million seed round backed by Mexico-based Dalus Capital and Draper Associates, the fund of venture capital heavyweight Tim Draper. VitaminC, Draper Cygnus VC, and Zenani Capital also participated. The raise follows $900,000 of pre-seed financing from MIT, TechStars and the United Nations. The new funding will support three pilot programs with US agencies.
Climate adaptation
US wildfires cost an estimated $424 billion annually, sharpening demand from insurers and asset owners exposed to fire risk. Insurance giant AON is using Satellites on Fire to assess wildfire risk across its Latin American forestry portfolio and is working with the company to develop a parametric wildfire insurance product.
Satellites on Fire also serves forestry operators, agricultural producers, utilities and government agencies. In Latin America, the company has more than 55,000 users who have field-validated 20,000 wildfire reports, forming the core dataset behind its models.
“More users generate more data, more data generates better AI models, and that generates more customers,” Rodriguez said.
