The person behind FireWatch

FireWatch started as a personal engineering project, not a business plan. I built the first version of the system myself — the drone hardware, the thermal sensing, the radio link, and the ground station dashboard — because I wanted to know whether cheap, off-the-shelf components could catch a fire earlier than the systems currently used to detect them.

The core problem stuck with me: by the time a wildfire or structural fire is confirmed through existing methods, it has often already grown past the point where it could have been contained easily. Ground sensors don't cover enough area. Satellites pass too infrequently. Manned aircraft are expensive and grounded at night or in bad weather. There was a real gap between the first spark and the first response — and closing that gap didn't require exotic technology, just the right combination of a thermal sensor, a long-range radio link, and a drone.

I built the working prototype solo — hardware, firmware, the RF link, and the web dashboard — and it proved the core idea works: a small autonomous system can detect heat signatures in real time without relying on the internet or cellular coverage.

FireWatch is still early. It's self-funded, pre-revenue, and I'm the only person on it today. This site exists to document that progress honestly, and to start the conversations — with fire agencies, industrial partners, and eventually a team — that will take it from a working prototype to something deployed in the field.