BLM Alaska Fire Service JPADS video 2024

Video of Alaska Fire Service Smokejumpers using autonomous Joint Precision Airdrop Systems for cargo drops.

Robot to the rescue
Autonomous technology aids firefighters with critical paracargo drops despite smoky and cloudy Alaska skies.

BLM Alaska Fire Service smokejumpers use paracargo – parachutes attached to a bundle of supplies and dropped from airplanes – to efficiently deliver equipment and provisions to firefighters in the field, especially on remote fires. Thick, dense smoke delayed critical resupplying the land-locked group of firefighters on fires in 2022. In 2024, clouds hampered these deliveries. To combat the delays, the BLM Alaska Fire Service smokejumpers used former military technology to autonomously deliver needed supplies to firefighters in remote Alaska.

Discover how Alaska smokejumpers use a Coleman’s camping stove-sized “robot” to supply remote firefighters even when visibility prevents traditional paracargo drops in remote Alaska at akfireinfo.com.

BLM AFS video by intern Agustin Urioste and public information officer Ira Hardy.