A pioneering German-Czech EU pilot project, CTRL-F, has successfully demonstrated a new early-warning system in the Neubäuer Forest near Roding to help fire services rapidly detect and assess forest fires using artificial intelligence, automated drones, and tree-mounted sensors.

The integrated system combines three core technologies to accelerate emergency response times using a combination of Tree-Mounted Gas Sensors distributed throughout the forest to instantly detect early-stage combustion gases and fire emissions, autonomous "Drone Garages" that are weather-proof stations housing thermal-imaging drones that remain on standby 24/7 and real-time AI Analysis using drones deployed automatically via sensor alerts, patrol schedules or manual fire service activation.

While flying to the coordinates, the drone transmits live footage analyzed in real time by AI to assess the threat.

"The drone can be launched by the fire service at the click of a mouse to assess the situation immediately," explained project leader Stefan Geißelsöder, a professor at Ansbach University of Applied Sciences.

Following the current testing phase in eastern Bavaria's Cham district, the three-year project aims to deploy four automated drone stations across the German-Czech border area covering the Bavarian and Bohemian forests starting in 2027.

The cross-border initiative is a collaboration between Ansbach University of Applied Sciences, the Cham district and its fire services, Czech company DronySIT and tech start-ups NeuralDrones and KI64.