As California Wildfires Wear On, Firefighters Look to KSI's Drones for Help

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

As California Wildfires Wear On, Firefighters Look to KSI's Drones for Help
Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash

In 2020, California experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with 4.1 million acres burned and four of the state's five largest-ever fires. And so far, 2021 is shaping up to be even worse: With record droughts affecting the state, over 1.3 million acres have already burned, and fire activity is outpacing last year's record totals.

Though firefighters remain overworked and underpaid, they may soon have some help in their Sisyphean task thanks to Playa del Rey-based KSI Data Sciences, and other drone companies that are increasingly on the frontlines.


That's the same basic idea that KSI is pushing with their technology, but with a serious emphasis on transmitting video feeds from the air to the ground to a collection of stakeholders and decision makers.

"If you can put a camera up in the air that can detect heat, and can relay that information back to firefighters on the ground or to command centers, then you're really ahead of the game," explained KSI CEO Jon Gaster.

Drones offer a variety of advantages to fire departments and decision makers on the ground. They can get to places that winged aircraft can't and allow agencies to reduce risk by removing human pilots from dangerous situations.

Before a fire ever starts, drones can be used to survey at-risk areas to provide topographical information and details about vegetation encroachment. During a fire, thermal sensors onboard the aircraft can cut through the smoke and provide information about how intense the flames are and which direction the fire is moving.

Dirk Giles, the unmanned aircraft systems program manager at the United States Forestry Service, said the growth in drone technology over the last six years has been tremendous. And he's seen first hand how replacing pilots in the air with pilots on the ground has made the job safer.

"From a safety standpoint, now we can do it in the smoke, at night. We have teams that are flying almost 24 hours a day now," said Giles.

After the fire has burned through an area, firefighters can use the technology to survey for hotspots where flames might reappear.

Gaster said that a handful of departments around the U.S. and Europe are currently demoing KSI's platform, which is known as "Mission Keeper," but he's is reticent about disclosing the exact number of organizations until the technology is officially adopted. He would only say that his company is "getting a very good response." (Neither Cal-fire nor the US Forest Service reported using KSI tech.)

Having the information from the drones is one thing, but KSI is also working on artificial intelligence applications that analyze video feeds frame by frame to synthesize and present data from the air to command centers on the ground in a format that's easier to understand and use.

"Let's say that you have a circumstance where you're heading to a building where there's a fire. What's the building made of? What are their permits there? What are they storing there? What are the egress and exit routes? What are the surrounding areas and traffic patterns like?" Gaster explained. "A.I. should allow you to bring computer intelligence to what you're seeing and should allow you to make decisions with much better information with much better information than if you're just using an eyeball."

This idea of being able to separate the signal from the noise is a foundational part of KSI's technology, but it's one that Gaster said is often overlooked in the tech world.

"There are thousands of A.I. projects that've failed because they don't take into account the full value chain," he said. "They are great lab projects, but they don't bring in the CFO, the guy on the production line, the engineer, the fulfillment guy, the support guy."

Usability is a core principle of the business model as the company goes up against competitors like DJI, Drone Amplified, Bridger Aerospace, Insitu (a Boeing subsidiary ) and the Microsoft HoloLens.

Aside from fire departments, KSI has a diverse array of clientele in both the private sector (such as AT&T) and the public sector (the U.S. military). Though the company has raised $4 million since it was founded in 2015, the core LA team remains small, with five U.S.-based full-time employees, KSI also uses programming teams in Europe and South America as needed.

Gaster's pitch to his clients is a simple one: "If anybody is trying to figure out how to stream video from anything to anything, give us a call," he said.

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The Impact of Authentic Storytelling. LA Latino/a Founders and Funders Tell All

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

The Impact of Authentic Storytelling. LA Latino/a Founders and Funders Tell All
Decerry Donato

As one of the most diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles is home to almost 5 million people who identify as Hispanic or Latinx. Yet, many feel they still lack representation in the city’s tech space.

“I can safely say that last year’s LA tech week hosted all of the events on the west side, and very few were focused on telling Latino and Latina entrepreneurial stories,” said Valeria Martinez, investor at VamosVentures. “We wanted to change that this year.”

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LA Tech Week Day 3: Social Highlights
Evan Xie

L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.

Here's what people are saying about day three of L.A. Tech Week on social:

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LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys
Decerry Donato

Women remain a minority among startup founders. According to Pitchbook, even though women-led startups in the United States received a record $20.8 billion in funding during the first half of 2022, U.S. companies with one or more female founders received less than 20% of total venture funding in 2022. U.S. companies solely led by female founders received less than 2% of the total funding.

The panel, titled Female Founders: Planning, Pivoting, Profiting, was moderated by NYU law professor Shivani Honwad and featured Anjali Kundra, co-founder of bar inventory software Partender; Montré Moore, co-founder of the Black-owned beauty startup AMP Beauty LA; Mia Pokriefka, co-founder and CEO of the interactive social media tool Huxly; and Sunny Wu, founder and CEO of fashion company LE ORA.

The panelists shared their advice and insights on starting and growing a business as a woman. They all acknowledged feeling pressure to not appear weak among peers, especially as a female founder. But this added weight only causes more stress that may lead to burnout.

“The mental health aspect of being a founder should not be overshadowed,” said Kundra, who realized this during the early stages of building her company with her brother..

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Kundra was surrounded by the startup culture where, “everyone is crushing it!” But she said that no one really opened up about the challenges of starting your own company. .

“Once you grow up as a founder in that environment, it's pretty toxic,” Kundra said. “I felt like I really wanted to be open and be able to go to our investors and tell them about challenges because businesses go up and down, markets go up and down and no company is perfect.”

Honwad, who advocates for women’s rights, emphasized the value of aligning yourself with people with similar values in the tech ecosystem. “[Those people] can make your life better not just from an investment and money standpoint, but also a personal standpoint, because life happens,” she said.

Moore, who unexpectedly lost one of her co-founders at AMP Beauty, said that entrepreneurs “really have to learn how to adapt to [their] circumstances.”

“She was young, healthy, vibrant and we've been sorority sisters and friends over the past decade,” she said about her co-founder Phyllicia Phillips, who passed away in February. “So it was just one of those moments where you have to take a pause.”

Moore said this experience forced her to ask for help, which many founders hesitate to do. She encouraged the audience to try and share their issues out loud with their teams because there are always people who will offer help. When Moore shared her concerns with her investors, they jumped in to support her in ways she didn’t think was possible.

Kundra said that while it is important to have a support group and listen to mentors, it is very important for entrepreneurs to follow their own thinking and pick and choose what they want to implement within their strategy. “At the end of the day, you really have to own your own decisions,” she said.

Kundra also said that while it is easy to turn to your colleagues and competitors and do what they are doing, you shouldn’t always follow them because every business is different.

“When I was in the heat of it, I kind of became [a part of] this echo chamber and that was really challenging for us,” Kundra added, “but we were able to move beyond it and figure out what worked for us [as a company] and we're still on a journey. You're always going to be figuring it out, so just know you're not alone.”

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