Keeling Curve

Project Summary / Description:

2017 was the worst year of wildfire disasters. 0.5M hectares of land were lost in Portugal, 109 died and many properties and roads were destroyed. Parts of the Amazon, the lungs of Earth, burned. 2017‚ California fire season left its permanent gruesome mark in history along with $ 8B in damages. Globally, we lose areas the size of India to wildfires every year costing around $ 180B dollars, excluding psychological costs and economic activity burden. Climate change will only exaggerate these effects in the future. This stops now.
We use the sensing capabilities of Earth Observation satellites to detect areas of land with dense vegetation, low soil moisture and high surface temperature. We then help sending organized local communities to these lands to clean wildfire surface fuel and do tree thinning. Research shows that this cleaning prevents wildfire disasters and helps firefighters contain the fires and protect the population. The biomass material collected is then sold to particle board manufacturers instead of being burned. This solution increases the economic activity in the country‚ hot regions, provides sustainable wood to industries and incentivises citizens and companies to comply with the rarely-enforced law.
We are nature-lovers and in recent years we have been afraid to go camping in the wild for fear of wildfires. We often brainstormed on how to protect the environment. We converged to using satellites, discovered that the sensing capabilities needed have been available for the last 2 years only, and decided to do this for our families.

Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Mission Statement:

Mission Statement:
We provide reliable, at-scale and precise wildfire risk analysis.
Our research shows that the best wildfire mitigation strategy is to clean surface and ladder fuel. We, the people around the globe, do not have the resources to do so everywhere where it is needed. This is why there is a need for a scalable solution, which zooms in on a specific region of Earth. For this region it provides reliable and continuous information on wildfire risk measured in vegetation density and health, land temperature and soil moisture. These precise measurements allow for the easy identification of riskiest patches of land. Local authorities and stakeholders are empowered by this information, and can adequately plan their cleaning and mitigation strategies. 

Underlying Values:
We believe a business should contribute to the good of humanity and/or the Earth. This is how we build Firefly. In addition to this, we build a result-oriented work environment, and an inclusive culture supportive of failure.

Link: Facebook:

- Observador https://observador.pt/2018/02/26/oito-ideias-para-melhorar-o-mundo-concorrem-esta-segunda-feira-a-estagio-na-nasa/ - Jornal Economico http://www.jornaleconomico.sapo.pt/noticias/cascais-recebe-summit-da-singularity-university-274145 - Cascais web page https://www.cascais.pt/noticia/singularity-university-que-portugues-vai-nasa