San Jose-based BurnBot to help reduce fire danger

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. ( KRON ) — In the East Bay, the public is getting a look at a new piece of technology that could be used to reduce fire danger.

We are headed into a dangerous time of year for wildfires here in California. It has been very dry out. Fire agencies and PG&E are always looking for ways to reduce fire danger.

One Bay Area company has come up with a machine that might be able to help.

The car-sized remote-controlled machine has a burn chamber at ground level that can incinerate dry grass. The resulting smoke is then burned inside the chamber and mixed with water. What comes out the top is mostly steam and the resulting burned ground is sprayed with water.

Normally, prescribed burns are done with a hand crew and careful planning, but often such burns are canceled due to weather conditions. In theory, BurnBot could clear dry vegetation at any time regardless of the weather.

BurnBot’s CEO Anukool Lakhina says the company, which is based in San Jose, has been developing this tech since 2020. They wanted to make a tool that could create defensible space in any conditions.

“As the machine moves it burns, it extinguishes, and it mops up,” Lakhina said. “It does it with very little smoke, so you can take this ancient knowledge of prescribed burns next to smoke-sensitive communities — next to critical infrastructure next to highways and roadways and powerlines where you have ignition events that can be destructive.”

The company says the plan moving forward is to refine BurnBot and hopefully scale up and make it widely available.

Now, another popular way to clear dry brush and grass is to use a herd of goats, but BurnBot has over that method that BurnBot doesn’t spread invasive plants.

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