Climate-Driven Wildfires: Building Faster Fire Response Systems with Andrea Santy

As climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of wildfires, the need for faster, smarter response systems is becoming urgent. Andrea Santy, Executive Program Director of XPRIZE Wildfire, is leading a global effort to detect and suppress fires within minutes, preventing environmental and economic devastation at scale.

In this episode of Hardware to Save a Planet, host Dylan Garrett speaks with Andrea about how satellite networks, AI, and autonomous systems are reshaping climate resilience. She explains the competition’s dual-track approach, the challenge of real-time detection across vast ecosystems, and the ambition of fully autonomous suppression within 10 minutes. The conversation explores how cross-border collaboration, scalability, and equitable deployment are essential to building solutions that can protect forests, communities, and the global climate system.

Andrea Santy is the Executive Program Director of the $11M XPRIZE Wildfire, where she leads a four-year global competition to accelerate technologies that can detect and suppress destructive wildfires. With over 20 years of experience in conservation and community development, she focuses on advancing scalable solutions to urgent climate challenges. At XPRIZE, she oversees program execution, builds strategic partnerships, and guides real-world testing, creating a collaborative platform to drive innovation in wildfire prevention, response, and long-term climate resilience.

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Previous guests include: Peter Reinhardt of Charm Industrial, Carlos Araque of Quaise, Noah McQueen of Heirloom, Areeb Malik of Glacier, Jeff Satwicz of Bigbelly, Abe Schneider of Natel Energy, Insiya Jafferjee of Shellworks, Paul Gross of Remora, Erika Boeing of Accelerate Wind and Daniel Betts of Blue Frontier.

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