01 · SENSE
Everything downstream is only as good as the measurement. So the system’s first job is to put sensors over the ignition itself — not on a road, not on a lookout, not in a model.
DETECTION & CUEING
Mesh nodes hold station over the landscape with thermal and optical gimbals sweeping the ground. When one node flags a heat signature, it cues a second — two bearings from two positions fix the ignition before anyone moves.
CONFIRMATION
ISR aircraft close on the cue and confirm optically: a real ignition, its exact position, its early behaviour. The output is a target file, not a guess — and a false alarm ends here, on camera, at no cost.
THE WIND FIELD
The same aircraft sample wind along the corridor the rounds will fly — speed and direction at the altitudes that matter. Wind measured at the fire is the single input that most decides where retardant actually lands.
SELF-HEALING BY DESIGN
Every node is both sensor and relay. Lose one and the mesh re-forms around the gap; the data path to fire control never depends on a single aircraft.
CROSS-CUE · FIXED BEFORE ANYONE MOVES
02 · DECIDE
BURST SOLUTION · SOLVED BEFORE RELEASE
WHAT GOES IN
The measured wind profile along the corridor, terrain under the drift cone, the fire’s position and early spread, and the drift behaviour of the retardant itself. All of it live, all of it from the mesh — none of it assumed.
WHAT COMES OUT
One point per round: where the FD25 bursts so the curtain drifts onto the fire line with maximum coverage. The solution carries its own confidence — and it is re-solved for every round, because the fire and the wind keep moving.
WHEN THE MATHEMATICS SAYS NO
If conditions sit outside the envelope the solution can stand behind, the system does not offer a release. It says so, plainly, and keeps measuring.
THE AUTHORISATION GATE
Autonomy runs to the edge of the trigger and stops. The incident controller sees the solution, the footprint and the confidence behind it — and nothing leaves a tube until that person decides. Every authorisation is recorded with the solution it approved.
RELEASE AUTHORISED · BY A PERSON, EVERY TIME
03 · DELIVER
THE LAUNCH PLATFORM
Rounds release from pneumatic tube racks — a soft launch with no pyrotechnics, positioned wherever a vehicle or a pad can get within reach of the corridor. The platform re-lays between rounds as the solution updates.
THE FD25 ROUND
Each round crosses the denied ground — the river, the ridgeline, the black — and bursts at its solved point, opening into a retardant curtain that drifts down onto the fire line.
TO HELD
Release, measure, re-solve, release again. The loop runs until the mesh confirms the fire is held — then stays on station through mop-up, watching for reignition. The engagement is not over when the last round flies; it is over when the sensors say so.
FD25 · ROUND DATA
DESIGNATION
FD25
PAYLOAD
Wildland fire retardant
LAUNCH
Pneumatic, soft-launch, tube-racked
GUIDANCE
To the solved burst point
EFFECT
Retardant curtain across the ground footprint
RELEASE AUTHORITY
Human, per round, logged
DETAILED PERFORMANCE
Disclosed under briefing
04 · CANDID, BY DESIGN
Agencies have been sold miracles before. So here is the other half of the specification — the edges of the envelope, stated plainly.
FDS holds new, small ignitions. A crowned, running fire is a different problem belonging to conventional attack — our job is to make sure far fewer fires ever become that problem.
The fireground belongs to the people on it. The system extends their reach into the first five minutes and the ground they cannot access — it does not do their job, and it never decides for them.
When conditions move outside what the burst solution can stand behind, the system withholds the option rather than offering a low-confidence release. It will tell you no.
A platform holds a finite number of rounds. FDS buys held fires and time — resupply is logistics, planned like any other consumable on an incident.
05 · ASSURANCE
Trust in an autonomous system is not asked for — it is demonstrated, release by release, in a record anyone can audit.
LOGGED END-TO-END
Every cycle records what was seen, what was solved, who authorised, and where it landed — from first detection to held.
REPLAYABLE
Any engagement can be replayed for the agency after the fact: the sensor picture, the solution as the controller saw it, the authorisation, the result.
NOTHING UNRECORDED
There is no release path that bypasses the log, and no log entry without a named human authorisation attached to it.
NEXT
A briefing walks your team through the full release cycle on real terrain — including the limits.
BRIEFINGS@FIREDEFENCESYSTEMS.COM