In this episode of Smart Forests Radio, we speak with Dr Waleed “Lee” Haddad, cofounder of BurnBot. BurnBot is a semi-automated mobile technology for facilitating prescribed burns. Through remote control technology, a burn chamber, and other components, the device enables prescribed burning and vegetation thinning to mitigate destructive wildfires, while ensuring minimal smoke production. Lee discusses BurnBot’s role within the emerging
FireTech
landscape
and the infrastructures, practices, and policies related to
wildfire
risk reduction. He also emphasises the importance of collaboration with
government
agencies,
NGOs
, other private initiatives, and
Indigenous communities
to address the urgent wildfire crisis in California and beyond.
Interviewer: Jennifer Gabrys
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Listen on Apple and Spotify.
This radio episode was produced by the Smart Forests project funded by the European Research Council. Smart Forests is led by Professor Jennifer Gabrys and is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.
Header image: Still from video of BurnBot in operation in collaboration with Cal Fire. Retrieved 27 September 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQRddZmfRU
Smart Forests Atlas materials are free to use for non-commercial purposes (with attribution) under a
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
To cite this radio episode:
Haddad, Waleed and Jennifer Gabrys, "BurnBot: Mitigating Wildfire Risks through Prescribed Burns", Smart Forests Atlas (2024), https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/radio/burnbot. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13867402.