Technology & Innovation Active Updated Jul 18, 2026
A satellite network built to catch wildfires while they're still small
Google and the Bezos Earth Fund backed FireSat, a constellation of satellites designed to spot wildfires as small as 16 by 16 feet through smoke and cloud cover. The arc will run as the fleet grows from three satellites to more than 50 over the next decade, scaling from twice-daily to 20-minute global checks.
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Jul 18, 2026 Latest
The first three satellites in the Google-backed FireSat constellation launched July 7 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying multispectral imaging able to spot fires as small as 16 by 16 feet. Google contributed 15 million dollars and the Bezos Earth Fund 26 million dollars; fire agencies in California, Colorado, Australia and Portugal begin using the data this year, with the network scaling toward hourly global checks by 2029 and 20-minute checks once more than 50 satellites are in orbit in the early 2030s.
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