In the US, lightning is the leading cause of wildfires in terms of area burned, responsible for 5.5 million acres lost in 2020

Over 70% of the area burned during wildfires in the western US was due to lightning ignitions, and lightning is the number one cause of wildfires in florida. On average, lightning-ignited wildfires become nine times larger than human-initiated fires because they often go unnoticed during ignition and early growth, and existing technology available to fire management agencies can neither quickly nor accurately identify them. Thousands of lightning strikes can occur each day within a wildfire management area, but only less than 10% of these are capable of initiating a fire, known as high-risk-lightningtm (hrltm). IT is difficult to identify which strikes will result in a fire, and impractical to send out personnel to search each strike site. Fire neural networktm (fnntm) technology can identify these strikes within 40 seconds, but not all of these strikes will result in a wildfire ignition because this is also dependent on other factors, such as ground and weather conditions. Therefore, IT is essential to quickly verify these strikes to allow first responders to assess and act while the risk spread is still small. There is an unmet need for rapid wildfire ignition verification and real-time tools to mitigate risks to vulnerable communities.fnntm will develop a novel method to protect vulnerable rural communities from lightning-initiated wildfires by creating a functional operating model to; (i) pinpoint and monitor a wildfire by verifying hrltm ignition using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based system called firebirdtm, reducing wildfire localization time from around 24 hours to 40 minutes, and (II) integrate real-time wildfire data with local community wildfire protection plans (cwpps) within a geographic information system (GIS) dashboard for use by emergency services, planning authorities, community leaders and local governments. IT will expand on proprietary detector technology developed by fnntm, and will use an underlying novel and open-source geocode. The research is closely aligned with the john d. Dingell, JR. Conservation, management and recreation act of 2019 and the federal healthy forests restoration act of 2003. In this phase i project, eight vulnerable florida counties and their associated cwpps will act as a trial for the technological development, to include aspects such as communities at risk and associated fire risk ratings; critical facilities locations and their vulnerability; and wildland-urban interfaces including wildland fuel types. The overall goal of the project is to produce a cwpp-led GIS dashboard that will identify, within 40 minutes and within 3 meters, a lightning-initiated wildfire, which can then be monitored and acted on by emergency responders. The GIS dashboard will also identify vulnerable communities and infrastructure, helping emergency responders make informed decisions on how be, ST to control the wildfire. The use of this system across the US will have significant positive impacts on human health, homes and businesses, small communities, farms and farmland, livestock, wildlife and habitats, forests, and important infrastructure such as power lines and roadways.