Pyri: The Nature-Infused Device That Can Change Everything In The War Against Wildfires
In the multi billion-dollar battle against wildfires, the front line is not a water drop or a firebreak, but rather a moment. The most critical battle is in the dire seconds after a spark ignites, where a slice of the brief response is action that can save a calamity fire. Detection is the alarm in our arsenal, and in the past, our watchtowers were in the mountains and the drones. As a matter of fact, since the use of satellites and drones, thermal cameras and the manned drones, there has been a complex and reliable early warning system.
However, this system has a critical soft spot: it’s financial burden, as well as its intricate nature. For remote regions such as; underfunded national parks in developing countries or communities on the wildland-urban interface, these high-tech automated systems are far too expensive to install and maintain. It is precisely this gap in our defenses where a tragedy often takes root. This is exactly the gap that a group of recent design graduates are trying to fill, not with more advanced technology, but with less. They claim that a fire detector the size of a pinecone could provide at risk communities with a vital leg up in the attempt to escape or put a major fire on containment mode. This is the story of Pyri, a device which represents a fire detection technology paradigm change. It is the result of advanced material science, deep biomimicry, and a personal desire to aid some of the most destructive effects of our rapidly changing climate.
The Beginning: A School Idea Transformed into a Business
The story of Pyri starts in one of the collaborative spaces in a London University. A class project for two design engineering students, Karina Gunadi Richard, together with their colleagues, turned into a full-fledged business project which the three of them decided to pursue after graduating in 2023.
The name of the company Pyri comes from the scientific term “pyriscence.” It is a great example of an eco-adaptation. Pyriscence describes the mechanism by which certain plants, particularly fire-dependent species, rely on the intense heat of wildfires to reproduce. The most iconic example is the serotinous pinecone. For species like the Lodgepole Pine or the Jack Pine, resin seals their cones shut, preserving the seeds within for years. It is only when a fire sweeps through, melting the resin, that the cones open and release the seeds. The forest uses the energy from the fire to regenerate, enabling survival.
The group was primarily inspired by the natural elegance of “how nature already responds to fire.” In a video interview, Karina Gunadi said, “These trees don’t just endure fire; they have evolved to harness it. So we asked ourselves, what if we can be inspired by that? What if we can use nature-based materials and create the simplest form of wildfire detection we can?” Their guiding philosophy of “learning from instead of fighting against natural processes” served as the foundation of the design.
The Technology: Biomimicry in Action
On the surface, Pyri epitomizes minimalist design. Its form closely relates to its function, and it is about the size and shape of a large pinecone. However, its shape reveals a robust and dependable passive mechanism.
1. The Materials: A Return to Nature
The device under consideration is made of wax and charcoal composite materials. This marks a major breakthrough in an industry that is primarily reliant on plastics, rare-earth metals, and lithium-ion batteries. Wax, on the other hand, is a structural element and the device’s triggering mechanism. Charcoal, on his part, serves a fire’s product as a conductor. A commitment to non-toxic materials is vital to the Pyri system. Although their organic electronics remain patent hidden and the internal electronic trigger is a secret, the designers are known to be actively pursuing a path that avoids environmentally damaging components.
2. The Trigger: Passive and Foolproof
The activation sequence, like the pinecone that inspired it, is elegantly simple. As wildfires draw nearer, the ambient heat rises. This ambient heat, over time, will surpass a certain threshold, at with the internal wax trigger will melt. The process of melting, using charcoal composite, likely provides a circuit that is completed and uses a low frequency radio wave signal that is produced of the melt process to broadcast a distress call.
3. The Form Factor: Designed for Deployment
The design of the pinecone is not for aesthetic purposes only. Its ribbed, organic shape is also quite impact-resistant, which is critical for devices that may be deployed from planes over rough and remote regions. In addition, the form works to the device’s advantage, as it helps it blend into the foliage. Therefore, it is not only unnoticeable to hikers, but crucially, to animals. This “leave no trace” philosophy is maintained even after the device’s function is done. Gunadi notes, “Once the devices ‘burn up,’ we want to ensure they are not going to leave any negative impact on the environment.” The devices are designed to be consumed by the fire they detect, and the only byproducts of the fires are non-toxic materials.
4. The AI Brain: Contextualizing The Signal
A single signal from a single sensor could be a false alarm—a campfire, a controlled burn, or even a sun-heated rockface. This is where Pyri’s system becomes intelligent. When a device is triggered, the signal is not blindly sent to emergency personnel. Rather, it is processed through a dedicated AI system. This system is capable of fetching real-time data from other sources, including but not limited to: satellite imagery, weather stations, and historical fire maps. The AI calculates the probability of the signal being a real dangerous wildfire alert after thoroughly analyzing its provided data.
Introduction: The Wildfire Crisis and the Need for Pyri
To comprehend the potential ramifications of Pyri, it is necessary to understand the chilling magnitude and development of the modern wildfire crisis. The concept of “fire seasons” is antiquated and no longer applicable. The effects of climate change have created an entirely new reality of year-round, severe “fire years” and wildfire crisis.
Rising temperatures, increasing drought, and shifting rainfall patterns have created regions of the Earth that are a powder keg waiting for a spark. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) predicts a dire future: a 30% increase in extreme wildfires by 2050, and a 50% increase by the end of the century. The impacts are undeniably disastrous. Wildfires accounted for a staggering 6,687 megatons of carbon dioxide in 2023, which is seven times the emissions of the entire aviation industry in the same year. This creates a vicious feedback loop: climate change drives wildfires, releasing greenhouse gases which in turn accelerate climate change.
Wildfires are now occurring in regions that have typically been considered immune to fires, such as the eastern parts of the United States and the mirelands of Siberia. The threat of wildfires is global, straining the already limited firefighting resources.
The crisis happening in the world is one that is personal to him. Pyri co-founder Richard Alexandre is from Brazil, where he saw fires raging in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. To the south, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Karina Gunadi was living through the 2020 North Complex Fire. “I woke up and the sky was dark orange, and it was like that for days,” she recalled. “That was really scary.” Their personal experiences fuel Pyri’s mission to develop effective and accessible wildfire-fighting tools.
Response times and Evacuations
The mathematics of wildfire spread is brutal and exponential. Fires, for instance, can spread up to 14 miles per hour. This speed means that fires can go from being containable to a national disaster in a matter of minutes. In 2020, the Australian National University estimated that spending a single hour less in responding to large scale fires could reduce the frequency of large fires by 16%.
Early detection allows for:
- Faster Evacuations: By aiding and improving community evacuations, fire detection systems help people escape successfully and without panic.
- Rapid Initial Attack: Enabling ground and aerial support access to the fire while it is still small and manageable, often requiring far less resources.
- Strategic Resource Allocation: Enables fire commanders to assign crew and equipment more optimally before the fire escalates and becomes too complex and unpredictable.
The Competitive Landscape: How Pyri Fits In
Pyri is responding to an opportunity fueled by other players, from government to technology companies, each implementing their unique approaches to solving the same problem.
The outgoing Biden-Harris administration earmarked $15 million to construct new fire weather observing systems. Google has pledged $13 million to its FireSat initiative, a constellation of satellites that will detect fires as small as five square meters and will provide updates every 20 minutes.
Domestically, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is partnering with companies such as N5 Sensors from Maryland that claim their devices can detect fires in under five minutes by “sniffing” for the gases and particles instead of using optics like traditional fire detection systems.
Pyri offers a different approach from other companies. While satellites offer macro-level data and electronic sensors yield incredibly precise micro-level data, both face a set of common hurdles like high cost, intricate supply chains, energy consumption, and environmental footprint. Pyri positions itself as the low-cost, low-maintenance, and low-impact alternative. By offering a passive, one-time-use trigger, Pyri eliminates the need for complex monitoring, making solar panels and batteries unnecessary. This approach simplifies infrastructure and lowers maintenance.
As an alternative to complex monitoring, Gunadi also highlights their goal of a “per kilometer subscription model” which includes sensors, installation, and monitoring software. This is priced at “half the cost of our nearest competitor.” This model specifically caters to small forestry services, agricultural cooperatives, utilities in rural areas, and citizens from developing countries.
The Path Forward: Challenges and the Road to Deployment
Pyri, like many other startups, faces a complex set of challenges moving from prototype to large scale deployment. The team has chosen to focus on research, development, and fundraising post-graduation. Early on, a significant boost from winning a James Dyson Award enhanced their credibility, offering a £5,000 (approximately $6,700) prize alongside invaluable validation.
The roadmap ahead is systematic:
- Small-Scale Tests (Late 2024): Focused burns to evaluate the sensors’ reliability, trigger accuracy, and signal strength during the rigorously controlled tests.
- Larger Pilot Programs (2025): Collaborating with forestry services or private landowners to gather data by placing clusters of sensors in fire-prone areas.
- Commercial Launch (Target 2027): Market rollout in the US, starting with the forestry, agriculture, and utility sectors followed by global expansion.
Key concerns still exist. For example, how many devices are required per acre? Gunadi’s answer points to a complex mix of topography, fuel load, and prevailing winds. “Fire dynamics are very complicated,” she says, which underscores the importance of the pilot programs for developing deployment algorithms. Other pilot program challenges include communications authority approval for the low-frequency signal, production scale-up, and sustainable material commitments.
Conclusion: A New Angle on Hope
Lastly, Pyri is more than a product; it is an indicator of a shift in mindset. This is a classic example of the effectiveness of biomimicry—of using nature not for something that can be exploited, but something that can provide guidance. In the steadfast and humble pinecone, these students discovered a model for resilience that has taken millions of years to evolve.
They designed a sophisticated tool that is elegantly appropriate for its purpose by fusing the ancient design with modern materials science and artificial intelligence. Unlike other technologies that amplify the struggle with the climate crisis, this one adopts a more reasonable approach: it acknowledges the severity of the problem and chooses to address it by collaborating with nature instead of waging a losing battle against it.
No one tool can beat wildfires. It needs a satellite overview, expensive aerial support, skilled firefighters, and land management. But Pyri offers a new low cost, grassroots layer—an early warning system—aimed at shifting the balance of time into the hands of the world’s most at risk communities and ecosystems. It’s a new layer of hope that aims to assist the very forests that inspired it.
Courtesy Pyri
