What's Your Problem? Fighting Wildfires from Space
Feb 26, 2026
Jonny Dyer, founder and CEO of Muon Space who built FireSat to detect fires from orbit. He talks about how smartphone tech made small satellites possible. He describes primitive wildfire mapping and how infrared satellites can spot tiny blazes. He explains low-cost infrared cameras, streaming data for near-real-time alerts, launch plans, and the challenge of getting fire agencies to adopt the system.
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Skybox Proved Small Cheap Satellites Work
- Jonny Dyer helped build Skybox, a small-satellite company that produced Google-Maps–quality imagery at a fraction of prior costs.
- Skybox built 21 satellites, proved the small-cheap paradigm, and was acquired by Google, shaping Dyer's approach at Muon.
MethaneSat Revealed Integration Is The Hidden Hard Part
- Dyer joined MethaneSat's advisory process to map methane globally and found integrating suppliers far harder than expected.
- The Environmental Defense Fund learned building a satellite without deep aerospace expertise was slow, expensive, and required five years of systems-integration work.
Persistent Infrared Changes How Fires Are Managed
- Firesat aims to detect new wildfires within ~20 minutes and then track intensity and movement persistently from orbit.
- Persistent infrared overhead data enables decisions to suppress dangerous high‑intensity fires while allowing beneficial low‑intensity burns.