07.01.25
·
Elizabeth Worthington
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Press
UMD students create firefighting drone as part of contest to end destructive wildfires

WMAR-2 News profiled Crossfire, the drone system built by University of Maryland fire protection engineering students and faculty for the XPRIZE Wildfire competition, a four-year, \$11 million global contest to end destructive wildfires.
The system pairs autonomous drones with AI detection and precision suppression, and is designed to detect and suppress a fire within 10 minutes across a 1,000 square kilometer area while using far less water and fuel than traditional aircraft.