Replanting trees after a wildfire or logging operation is an extremely labor intensive and expensive task. Carrying a bag of seedlings and using a dibble bar or shovel across steep debris-covered terrain can wear out a human. A new company, DroneSeed, has a solution. They are designing a system around a swarm of drones that can plant tree seeds in places where they have a decent chance of survival. First they survey the area with a drone using lidar and a multispectral camera to map the terrain and the vegetation.

A group from Northwest Nazarene University is working on systems using artificial intelligence to analyze data collected by drones to map wildfires and determine fire effects. We filmed this interview in a room where exhibits were being installed at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula, Montana the week of May 21, 2018.