Israeli Startup Leverages Iron Dome Technology to Fight Wildfires | United with Israel

Fires in Hodeidah, Yemen after IAF strike (YouTube screenshot) (YouTube screenshot)

FireDome is an autonomous patent-pending system that provides two layers of protection against fires.

By Shula Rosen

The deadly wildfires that engulfed Los Angeles resulted in billions In damage and thousands of broken lives.

Unfortunately, wildfires are happening more frequently and current solutions to prevent and contain them seem inadequate.

This may change with FireDome, an Israeli startup that has adapted the model of the Iron Dome missile defense system to extinguish wildfires and prevent them from spreading.

Israelis can attest to the power of Iron Dome and its ability to prevent hostile missiles from reaching populated areas.

Gadi Benjamini, who served 14 years in Israel’s military, had the idea in January to adapt the Iron Dome’s system to fighting wildfires.

He told Times of Israel, “What we develop is a system to enhance firefighters’ abilities and capabilities to address more fires simultaneously, like spot fires and embers and to reach places where sometimes they can’t, due to different logistics constraints that they have,” he said.

Benjamini along with Dr. Adi Naor Pomerantz developed FireDome, an autonomous patent-pending system that provides two layers of protection against fires.

First, in response to alerts, a launcher directs projectiles filled with flame-retardant materials into the area to prevent the area from catching fire.

Second, an AI system detects and extinguishes spot fires ignited by stray embers carried by the wind.

FireDome is testing its system in the Jerusalem and Carmel forests, which are vulnerable to wildfires, in May.

The company will then test the technology at pilot sites in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2026.

Regarding the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles, Benjamini says FireDome may have prevented much of the damage by creating a barrier between the wilderness and populated areas.

“Putting out a fire at the interface between the wild land where the fire started and the neighborhood could have made a major difference, because we could have created barriers to protect these neighborhoods and we could have fought the spot fires that started there,” he said.